The relationship between Argyll and CalMac is pretty hard wired. 17 of the ferry operator’s 27 routes – 63% – are in Argyll and the Isles. The black and white, red funnelled ferries of all shapes and sizes, many built to operate within the idiosyncracies of loading and berthing facilities on specific routes, are part of what defines Argyll in the mind.
CalMac’s business performance is also a litmus test of the economic health of this place, showing where there is growth and where there is retraction – evidence that has to be part of strategic economic development planning, including early remedial action.
The overall performance of the multiple award-winning operator [four awards in 2013] has been positive, carrying nearly 84,000 more passengers and nearly 19,000 more cars in 2013, a modest growth of around 1.8% in each of these categories, achieved against a background of losing nearly 1200 sailings in bad weather in the last two months of the year.
The operator carried fewer coaches in 2013 – with a minimal decline of half of one per cent in that category – a changeable one, as tour operators modify and develop routes and business models, sometimes changing to larger coaches and taking more travellers on fewer trips.
The interesting issue is the overall decline in commercial vehicles carried – 6.68% overall and with some routes showing sharp decline.
Transport Scotland also extended the car rate to vehicles up to 6metres, These would previously have paid full commercial rates – so some of the commercial traffic may still be active, but travelling on a different rate.
The fact that Road Equivalent Tariff discounts were removed from commercial vehicles on the routes to which RET applies cannot explain the phenomenon. The fact that the fall in commercial vehicle movements is virtually universal across the routes means that the RET issue cannot be the driver of this change; and, although it may be a contributing factor on specific routes, it will not be the whole story.
In 2014 and with the economy on the way back up, the recession precipitated by the banking collapses of 2008 cannot be much of a player in a position developed between 2012 and 2013; and there has been continuing decline since 2011 at least.
Continuing depopulation in some islands might be a factor, with reduced needs to be met by the commercial carrier sector. However, the case of Islay would deny this – showing increased movements in passengers and particularly in cars, but with a 16.79% decrease in commercial vehicle movements.
It may be that the carrier sector has been undergoing a degree of business rationalisation of deliveries, with business-to-business route sharing also a factor in this overall picture.
This part of the emerging picture merits serious independent research to establish whether the service needs of remote island communities is being met, perhaps through evolving means; or whether there is genuine contraction in this sector, with island communities downscaling their needs and expectations.
Year 1 of the 3 year Ardrossan-Campbeltown pilot summer service
2013 was the first of the suddenly announced three year pilot service between Ardrossan n Ayrshire and Campbeltown in Kintyre, running via Brodick in Arran on the Saturday outward service only.
The new service ran for a total of 18 weeks, 23rd May to 29th September 2013- with one single service on each of two days, one in, one out; an outward-bound shopping-day return from Campbeltown on a fourth day – Fridays; and a pragmatic ‘delivery’ return on Sundays, getting in to Campbeltown at 16.30 and departing 25 minutes later.
In 2014, the service will will start on 1st May and run until 28th September.
We were highly critical of the timetable for the route – whose declared aim was to grow summer traffic into Kintrye. The schedule made it impossible for travellers on foot to make a day return to Campbeltown, to get a taste of the place for lengthier return. Worse, the schedule made it impossible to go to Campbeltown without spending two nights in it; and even then, with the proportion of time between sailings slanted towards sleeping time.
With the Friday return service dedicated to taking retail business out of Kintyre, the thrust of the pilot is a state subsidised lifestyle service for residents of Campbeltown and its hinterland in Kintyre, rather than the focused economic development facility it undeniably needs to be.
There are of course, as yet, no 2012 figures for comparison, just a first year’s performance hurled into being without serious preparation on the back of of a politically motivated announcement of its imminent inception.
So its 2013 carrying figures can be no more than an interim snapshot of an immature service, unadvertised before starting and timetabled to try to secure the votes of residents rather than to recruit the visitors from elsewhere that the spectacular but remote Kintyre and the grand merchant town of Campbeltown need and could reward.
So what are the figures?
In the 18 weeks it ran, the service moved 9,824 passengers, 1,958 cars, 3 coaches and 12 commercial vehicles.
With an 18 week season, this produces a figure of 546 passenger movement a week. With a total of six single services over the four days of each week, two single day trips and two day-returns, this sees 91 passengers carried per sailing.
With the return service on Fridays largely a shopping day out for local residents and without disaggregated figures, there is one way of getting a crude indicative sense of the inward economic impact of the service.
Assume that locals use the service only on the Friday shopping return to Ardrossan [railhead for Glasgow]. That takes two of the six sailings out of the calculation, at 182 passenger movements. That leaves four single sailings, two of which are incoming and two outgoing. At 91 passengers per sailing and assuming that all of these passengers are visitors, that produces 182 passengers carried on the two incoming sailings.
This rule-of-thumb picture suggests that the pilot service delivered an average of 182 incoming visitors to Campbeltown for each of its 18 weeks service in its first year.
Carrying three coaches in its first reduced season is no surprise and can be no measure of the capability of this service to attract coach traffic. There had been no time to advertise the service or to market it to coach operators – an initiative which will have been completed for this season, although, given the sales timelines of holidays, the pilot may not show the full fruits of marketing the service into this sector until its final year.
The fact that only 12 commercial vehicles were carried in the 18 week first year would suggest both the impact of no advance notice of the coming onstream of the service and, perhaps principally, the fact that the road route between Glasgow and Campbeltown may remain the preferred access of commercial carriers into Kintyre, fitting better with efficient route scheduling.
We are disturbed to discover from the CalMac website, that the Summer timetable for this year remains – against all commercial logic, stubbornly the same as last year’s. The town opted, in discussion, to retain the former schedule.
As we have said, this is little more than a state subsidised lifestyle support service which is undoubtedly pleasant to have. However, this can hardly justify the cost to the public purse involved for the limitations placed on the impact it can have on the development of the vital economic sustainability of Campbeltown and Kintyre.
An interesting comparison is the everyday service provided by Scottish Citylink’s decent coach return service between Campbeltown and Glasgow – running no fewer than 5 returns a day, 7 days a week, winter and summer. This is a private sector service operated for Scottish Citylink by a long standing and respected family transport business in Campbeltown, West Coast Motors.
If we assume a 60% average summer occupancy on the 50 seaters on this popular service, that would see WCM/Scottish Citylink delivering 300 passenger movements a day, 2,100 a week and 37,800 in an equivalent 18 week period – over four times the volume of the misapplied ferry and free of weather dependency.
The Bute scenario
The Bute economy – and the state of its main town of Rothesay – have been in progressive joint decline. This continuing situation is demonstrated in the movemnts of people and vehicles facilitated by CalMac in 2013.
The island is served by two CalMac vehicle and passenger ferries – one across the Clyde from Wemyss Bay in Ayrshire to Rothesay; the other on the minutes long passage across the east Kyle of Bute between Colintraive in the southwest of the Argyll’s Cowal peninsula and Rhubodach, about 10-15 minutes north of Rothesay.
Between 2012 and 2013, the Wemyss Bay route shows a decline against all four carrying categories: passengers down by 1.92%; cars down by 3.51%; coaches down by 3.21%; and commercial vehicles down by 7.79%.
The short Colintraive route – which is well off the beaten track to access, although by a decent A road – showed increases and decreases, with passenger movements up 2.31%, coaches up 2.87%; cars down by 1.22%; and commercial vehicles down by 11.95%.
Putting the results of the two routes together, the picture for Bute is one of decline in all categories except coaches, with movements up by a total of 1.96%. Passengers movements were down overall by 0.94%, cars by 2.74%; and commercial vehicles by 9.71%.
With a 10.09% population decline between 2001 and 2011, this picture indicates that a physically beautiful island with a resonant history and serious attractions, enviably well placed in the Clyde waterway, with ferry access from two different geographical and tourism sectors, has failed – and has been failed – in moving with the times, retaining and developing its economic position.
Mull service bucking the trend
The route across the Sound of Mull between Tobermory on the Isle of Mull and Kilchoan on the Ardnamurchan peninsula showed substantial increases on all fronts in 2013. Passenger movements were up 4.36%; caars up 2.24%; coaches up a whopping 433.33%; and commercial vehicles up 162.50%.
However, here we are talking about a small boat and low volumes where change can be small in numbers but produces major percentage differences. For example, coach numbers went up from 6 carried in 2012 to 32 carried in 2013 – a substantial change but with the caveat that coach traffic can be quite volatile. With commercial traffic on this route, movement numbers were up from 16 in 2012 to 42 in 2013.
The other service between these two areas – Lochaline in Morvern on the Ardnamurchan peninsula and Fishnish on Mull – showed declines in all categories. This raises the question as to whether, there is a degree of rerouting of commercial and coach traffic going on, perhaps through rationalisation of commercial carrier services and development of coach delivered tourism.
The major Mull service between Oban on the Argyll mainland and Craignure on the south est of the island, showed increases in passengers and cars; and decreases in coaches and commercial vehicles. Passenger movements were up modestly by 0.73%; cars by 3.9%; with coach traffic down by 0.85% and commercial traffic down by 12.38%.
Overall, the 2013 picture for Mull – whose population showed an increase of 4.98% between 2001 and 2011, from 2667 to 2800 – is: passenger movements up 0.51%; cars up by 2.5%; coaches down by 0.54%; commercial vehicles down by 11.89%, a substantial decrease. This does not, however, necessarily mean a lesser volume of materials moved between mainland and island. Although that may be the case, it would focused research to reveal the true picture. In general, Mull is more than holding its own.
Colonsay boost
The Isle of Colonsay, out in the Atlantic from its more inshore sisters in then island chain of Islay, Jura snd Colonsay, is showing a picture of solid growth appropriate to its nature – but with the now familiar decline in the movements of commercial vehicles.
Colonsay is routinely serviced from Oban, with one service a week, year round on Saturdays, linking to the island en route between Islay, Oban and back to the Argyll mainland at Kennacraig on West Loch Tarbert.
In Winter, it has no services on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. In summer is has services every day, with Mondays being an inward service, outward bound on Tuesdays.
Its two routes mean that Colonsay’s precise performance cannot be read accurately from the global annual figures alone, since its Saturday services also embark and disembark at Islay and the mainland, with the proportion of movements relating to Colonsay not disaggregated.
However, the straightforward service between Oban and Colonsay itself showed strong growth in passenger and car movements – the two most suited to the nature and terrain of the island, Passenger movements were up by 10.17%, from 14,247 to 15,396; with cars up 12.46% from 4,285 to 4,819.
Coach movements were well down – 16.67% – although a very substantial increase of 112% on the Saturday route [via Oban-Islay-Kennacraig], may mean that some of this upturn was routing to Colonsay, with no decrease and perhaps even an increase in coach traffic. This hypothesis is supported by the downturn in coach traffic – by 15.10% – on the dedicated Islay route from Kennacraig, suggesting greater use on carrier schedules of the Oban service to Islay. Without disaggregated figures no interpretation can be assured.
In commercial vehicle movements, Colonsay too showed decline, with the dedicated Oban-Colonsay route showing a hefty drop of 32.41% n this category. In contrast, the Saturdays-only Oban-Colonsay-Islay-Kennacraig route showed only a modest 1.61% reduction overall in commercial vehicle carryings, which, with a solid decrease of commercial carryings on the dedicated Kennacraig-Islay route, indicating perhaps, an increasing robustness in the use of the Oban route for commercial services.
Colonsay also fares benefits from Road Equivalent Tariff [RET] discounts, with proximity to Oban for short day trips on Saturdays. This was a good summer so a trip to Colonsay would have been an attractive day out.
CalMac’s summary of the network performance
CalMac says:
‘Annual carryings for January to December 2013, published today, show that a total of 4,594,520 passengers and 1,064,324 cars travelled with CalMac on its 27 routes, with 18 of those routes showing an increase in traffic.
‘Two routes were trialled for the first time in 2013; the Ardrossan-Campbeltown summer service which began in May, and the Lochboisdale-Mallaig winter service, which began in November but has been badly affected by the extreme weather which has prevailed for virtually all of the first two months of the pilot.
‘CalMac Operations Director Brian Fulton said: “2013 was a year of very mixed fortunes with an incredibly busy and hot summer which boosted carryings especially on the Clyde, but which was followed at the end of the year, by some of the worst winter conditions ever seen. These storms have had, and continue to have, a devastating effect on sailings right across the network from the Clyde to the Western Isles.
‘ “In November and December around 1200 sailings were cancelled due to the weather which is a good indication of how widespread the disruption has been. Anyone who has seen the TV footage of extreme weather battering coasts around the country will have a good sense of the type of conditions our Masters have been facing and understand why this winter has been such a challenge.
‘ “We recognise that these cancellations are hugely inconvenient for ferry travellers and the communities we serve, but we have to put the safety of our passengers, crews and ships first.” ‘
NOTE: The full annual carryings on a route by route basis can be viewed online at the CalMac website here.