Once again, Transport Scotland has launched a survey on the Dunoon – Gourock CalMac ferry service as a long-overdue ‘community needs assessment’ was published yesterday evening.
The assessment was published in the form of a 100-page report on the Transport Scotland website and is intended to inform Transport Scotland – and Scottish Government ministers – on the future of the service, which Transport Scotland is attempting to bundle with the Gourock – Kilcreggan service.
The report – originally due for publication last year – was compiled by consultants Stantec and is certainly extensive in its background, detailing travel trends on both CalMac and Western Ferries between 2012 and 2022.
It shows that in 2012 Western Ferries carried 1,389,000 passengers between Hunter’s Quay and McInroy’s Point, while CalMac carried 341,000.
By 2022 Western were carrying 1,226,000 and CalMac 196,000 – neither service fully recovering from the pandemic year of 2020.
The report notes: “Whilst the majority of Western Ferries’ passengers will be travelling in a car (either as a driver or passenger), these figures nonetheless highlight the dominance of this route.”
It also notes: “Poor reliability is almost certainly one of the core contributors to the reduction in passenger numbers [on the town centre service] in recent years.”
Research carried out in the summer months of 2022 showed that, on the CalMac Dunoon-Gourock service, 5 per cent of sailings carried no passengers; 22 per cent of sailings carried fewer than three passengers; 41 per cent of sailings carried fewer than seven passengers; 71 per cent of sailings carried fewer than 16 passengers; and 1 per cent of sailings carried more than 50 passengers.
The report goes on to say: “With the exception of a handful of sailings taking passengers to and from the Cowal Games, passenger carryings in both directions rarely exceed one tenth of maximum vessel capacity. In short, total capacity across the day is significantly in excess of market demand.”
The report suggests a number of options for Transport Scotland to consider when redesigning the route.
Some of them make for painful reading for regular users of the route.
They include operating a triangular Gourock – Kilcreggan – Dunoon service, reducing sailing frequency with only one vessel assigned to the route and ending the town centre service after 6pm, with busses going from town-centre to town-centre via Western Ferries in the evening.
The survey can be accessed HERE
The full report can be viewed HERE
There will also be drop-in sessions when potential timetables will be available:
- Cove Burgh Hall, October 1, 3pm to 5:30pm
- Dunoon Queens Hall, October 2, 2:30pm to 4pm and 5pm to 6:30pm
- Gourock Gamble Halls October 3, 2:30pm to 4pm and 5pm to 6:30pm
See next Friday’s Dunoon Observer for more detail and reaction.
