Appendix A: RSM/CNA Guidance Update for ICP

Community Needs Assessment – Islands Connectivity Plan

Background

The Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP) will replace the Ferries Plan 2013-22 and will consider island connectivity more broadly having regard to aviation, ferries and fixed links, and to connecting and onward travel.

Central to the Ferries Plan was a community needs assessment undertaken using a repeatable Routes and Services Methodology (RSM), equivalent to a Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) pre-appraisal report, developed for the Ferries Review. This primarily considered ferry service frequency and the length of the operating day.

Transport Scotland are now undertaking a series of community needs assessments to inform the delivery of the Islands Connectivity Plan for the Clyde & Hebrides (CHFS) and Northern Isles (NIFS) networks.

The RSM process

RSM is a six step process to identify whether gaps exist in the current level of service. Where gaps are identified, options to address the gaps are developed and appraised to set the priorities for future spending.

The first step in RSM is to identify the dependencies of the communities. Four dependencies are considered:

  • commuting and frequent business use
  • personal
  • freight
  • tourism

These dependencies are assessed using 11 quantitative indicators, and communities are categorised into ‘pots’ and ranked from A to D for each dependency. Only those communities scored as A or B indicates a priority need in that area.

Step 2 defines service profiles for the summer and winter seasons that fit the community’s dependencies based on the dependencies identified in Step 1 as a ‘priority need’ and the crossing time (in minutes).

Steps 3 and 4, compare the “model service” produced by Step 2 to current service, producing a gap analysis which identifies under or over provision in terms of:

  • Number of sailing days
  • Length of day
  • Frequency

If Step 4 concludes that the current service meets the identified needs and there is no evidence of over or under provision, then no further action is needed.

If Step 4 identifies evidence of over or under provision, the significance of this is considered by Transport Scotland in consultation with stakeholders and, if it is considered material in terms of impact or cost, including of future investment, then the assessment moves to Step 5.

Step 5 considers the options for addressing the over or under provision identified through Steps 1-4.

Step 6 considers the prioritisation across the ferries network (and potentially wider, in terms of island connectivity more broadly).

Additional assessment

In reviewing the original methodology ahead of the ICP, and taking account of feedback from local authorities who have used it more recently for their own services, a number of points to take cognisance of when re-using RSM are:

  • It was developed to consider ferry services, however, the ICP requires consideration of aviation and fixed links (e.g., peninsulas, bridges or tunnels) where these already exist (or, in the options appraisal stage, where these could be viable options).
  • Similarly, the scope of the ICP includes “connecting and onward travel” whereas the RSM was only originally applied to the ferry leg of a journey.
  • It assumes some key operational aspects are fixed (e.g., improvements to crossing times etc are not taken into account).
  • It only considered meeting “community needs” in terms of timetabling – sailings days, length of day, frequency – and did not consider capacity or reliability/resilience or wider socio-economic factors.

The community needs assessments being undertaken for ICP are based on a re-run of the RSM. However, in response to the above feedback on the original methodology, in addition to assessing current services against the model service produced under Step 2, under Step 4 the assessment also assesses the current performance of the service against other identified needs:

  • reliability
  • resilience
  • capacity
  • connecting and onward travel
  • Wider socio-economic needs and alignment with the National Transport Strategy and the National Islands Plan.