Journeys on public transport rose 34% in 2022-23, figures show

Public transport journeys increased by more than a third in 2022-23, figures show.

Some 396 million journeys were made by either bus, rail, air or ferry over the year – an increase of 34% from 294 million journeys in 2021-22, when travel was still impacted by some Covid-19 restrictions.

The figures published by Transport Scotland, however, show travel has yet to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels of 2019, where 497 million journeys were recorded.

The official data, released as part of the Scottish Transport Statistics report, shows 301 million bus journeys were completed in 2022-23, accounting for 76% of all journeys on public transport.

Bus journeys increased by 29% over the year but were still down 17% compared to the last pre-pandemic year.

Rail travel also increased from 2021-22, up 36% to 63.7 million journeys – however it was still 34% lower than the 96 million in 2019-20.

An increase in road traffic was also noted, with a 9% rise in the total distance travelled compared to the previous year – reaching 47.4 billion kilometres in 2022-23.

The number of vehicles registered in Scotland reached 3.1 million in 2022-23 – an all-time high.

Air passengers more than tripled over the year from the previous 12 months to 21.5 million, but the number was still down 26% from 2019.

On-road cycling is estimated to have decreased by 3% in 2022-23 compared to 2021-22, however following an increase in cycling during the pandemic, this was still 16% higher than 2019.