It has been revealed that passenger numbers on the Edinburgh Trams line between York Place and the Airport are set to hit 3 million by the end of the year – ahead of forecast patronage. The figures were released as Transport for Edinburgh – the integrated transport group for the city – celebrated their first anniversary and announced that 6 million more passengers had been welcomed on Edinburgh’s public transport network during 2014 (in addition to the 3 million on the trams bus patronage increased by 3 million).
Ian Craig, Transport for Edinburgh Chief Executive, said: “The first year of Transport for Edinburgh has been quite remarkable. We’re seeing are fantastic results which are the sum of all the efforts put in from right at the outset by people at Edinburgh Trams, Lothian Buses, the City of Edinburgh Council and by all of our partners. We’ve had to invest and be bold to get here but I make no apology for leading that – we’re in new territory. Establishing a new company and brand isn’t easy but our investment is paying off and what we’re seeing as a result is six million more people using public transport in 2014 over 2013. This is a huge shift which is of great benefit to Edinburgh’s environment and it’s economy. Transport for Edinburgh is the future and it benefits from the very best with Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams. I’m delighted to be leading it.”
Edinburgh Trams opened to the public on Saturday 31st May and despite a few high profile incidents where road vehicles have been in collision with trams it is thought that the operational reliability of the line is as good as would be expected from a new line.
* Meanwhile the inquiry into the project – announced by the Scottish government back in June – has now launched its own website at http://www.edinburghtraminquiry.org/. This will give details of the inquiry, who is involved in the inquiry and eventually the full report will be released there. It is expected the inquiry will take the form of 10 stages and currently it is in the second and third stage which involves setting up offices, recruiting staff and obtaining technical support and the start of the investigation including deciding what further information is needed.
An excellent achievement for the trams and hopefully something for the nay sayers to consider when it comes to reasonable, practical extensions of the network.
These figures are to be welcomed. However, it’s unfortunate that on Saturdays, the advertised 8-14 minute frequency is not being maintained. This was most noticeable at Gyle Centre yesterday (Saturday 13 December 2014) where long queues of city bound passengers were present from mid morning through to mid afternoon; similar scenes were replicated at Edinburgh Park Station. Nost heartening for Transport for Edinburgh (TFE) is the fact that many city bound services were “standing room” only which beggars the question “why don’t they put on relief trams ?
is it not strange that 3 million would wish to travel on a tramway that no one wants???? Perhaps it is time for those doom and gloom experts to eat humble pie and voted for the extensions.
I recently spent a day travelling on the trams in Edinburgh. I found them on whole to be well used, However some people in Edinburgh continue to knock them and say they are waste of money. It is up to Edinburgh Council who own and run them, Yes Edinburgh still own them and run them later at certain times of the year i.e. during the Edinburgh Festival. The council do not need to nearly £1/4 million pounds to decide if they what to find out if continue the line down to Leith , just get on with it as they have the materials to restart it and it will allow for all the trams to be used regularly and get some of the buses to be reallocated to other routes in Edinburgh.
They certainly won’t need to obtain any more trams so the cost of extending the line should be relatively low.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, the council are refusing to disclose how many of these 3m journeys were Concessionary fares! By doing this, nobody really knows what the revenue is. Suspicions are being raised that they are not fab!
John West makes a valid point. However, unlike other authorities, readers are advised that the Scottish Executive and Edinburgh Council in particular discriminate against non Edinburgh residents using their concessionary travel passes on the (prejudiced) pretext that the tramway was paid for by Edinburgh’s council tax payers. It most certainly was not but was funded to a very large degree by the Scottish taxpayer through the Scottish parliament at Holyrood. Free tram travel should be available to ALL Scottish concessionary travel card holders.