South Ronaldsay folk asked to help ‘fine tune’ community transport service

The Council’s Transportation Service is seeking further feedback from South Ronaldsay residents to ‘fine tune’ the pilot on-demand door-to-door community transport service in the area. 

The trial service, due to start later this year, will be available for anyone in the community to use, providing a link to local services in the Hope and onwards to Kirkwall via the existing X1 bus. 

Transportation Service Manager, Laura Cromarty, said the Transportation Service are grateful for the initial feedback from members of the community, and they are now looking at the finer details of the pilot. 

The operator would like to hear more on key points of interest/pick up points on the map so that they can create a base map for bookings: https://shorturl.at/szT0P.  

A new booking App will also be trialled during the initial period with the view to extend to other community transport services. 

“We would also like feedback on what time people would be most likely to travel based on the service operating a Friday and Saturday, which were highlighted as the preferred days during the initial consultation period. The intention is for the service to connect with the X1 ‘workers bus’ am and pm and then provide some flexibility in the middle of the day for connecting onwards travel and providing access to local services and amenities in St Margaret’s Hope.” 

The project was initiated following feedback from the Council’s Community Transport Review, and general feedback about the X1 service run commercially by Stagecoach. 

The trial will be funded from the Council’s Sustainable and Green Transport Fund - a pot established from bus passenger fare income, for improvements and enhancements to active and sustainable travel initiatives across the county and Community Energy Scotland funding enabling the service to run until at least October 2025. 

The service will operate using a wheelchair accessible electric bus following an external community transport capital grant received during 2023/24.  

Laura Cromarty added: "In such a dispersed population, it can be challenging to provide scheduled public bus services as demand is generally low.  

"We are therefore pleased to trial this on-demand two day per week service to help residents connect with local facilities or onwards travel such as the ferry or bus.  

"Whilst this is a limited service which won't suit everyone, we hope it will help connect some residents who may not have access to a car and allow them to be more independent by providing a service which is affordable and reliable.” 

The Transportation Team would appreciate any feedback from the community by emailing transport@orkney.gov.ukor contact 01856 873535 and ask to speak to the Transportation Service by Friday 18 October.