Scotland's Chief Statistician today published Bus and Coach Statistics, 2009-10.
These webtables present a range of bus statistics in one place including Department for Transport Scottish bus operator data, Transport Scotland concessionary bus fare data and further analysis of bus-related information collected by the Scottish Household Survey (SHS). All data is secondary release of these stastistics i.e. it is already published elsewhere.
Main Findings
Passenger journeys and vehicle kilometres
There are more passenger journeys per head of population in Scotland than GB, although the difference is decreasing - from 1.15 times more in Scotlandthan GB in 2004/05 to 1.04 in 2009-10.
The only region to experience a growth from last year in passenger journeys is Highlands, Islandsand Shetland.
There were 73 thousand vehicle kilometres travelled by local buses per head of population in Scotlandin 2009/10 - 1.7 times more than GB as a whole.
Finance
Fares in GB have increased at a greater rate than in Scotlandsince 1999, although at a similar level over the past 5 years.
Total Government support on local buses services in Scotlandwas £312 million in 2009-10.
Operating costs per vehicle kilometre have risen by 21% and 23% in both Scotland and GB (outwith London) respectively over the 5 year period. GB (outwith London) costs are consistently higher than Scotland(164 pence per vkm compared to 148 pence per vkm in 2009/10).
Bus fleet characteristics
The percentage of buses in Scotlandfitted with CCTV has almost doubled since in 2009-10 from 2005-06 (57% vs 28%) although this is still lower than the 2009/10 GB figure of 70%.
The percentage of buses that are accessible or have a low floor has increased from 36% in 2004/05 to 82% in 2009/10.
Use of local bus service
Women are more likely to use the bus than men - 57% of bus trips the previous day were carried out by women in 2009 compared to 43% undertaken by men, although this gap has decreased over time.
Bus journeys are more likely to be undertaken by those in lower income households - 44% of bus journeys in 2009 were carried out by those with net household income less than £15,000.
The most popular reasons given for commuters not using the bus to travel to work were 'takes too long' (36%) and 'no direct route' (33%).
Concessionary travel pass
Eighty-nine per cent of those aged 60 and over hold a concessionary pass as do 3% of those aged 16-59.
There were a total of 1.2 million concessionary passes issued as at January 2011. One million of which were issued to those aged 60 and over.