I am grateful to Parliament for the opportunity to make a statement on our winter transport resilience in Scotland.
We know that severe weather will cause disruption, but the Government has taken a wide range of steps to improve our resilience to the challenges of winter, to mitigate its impacts, to recover our transport networks and businesses, and to get daily life back to normal as quickly as possible. That has been done in partnership with a broad range of public, private and third sector partners, and it has included new investment, development and innovation, in all cases learning the lessons from recent winters.
Scotland will experience severe weather in the future, whether it is snow, a deep freeze, heavy rain or disruptive storms such as those of last winter. That does not just happen in winter. The summer flooding that has affected neighbourhoods across Scotland is fresh in everyone’s memory in Fife and Perthshire, for example.
We cannot prevent the weather, but we can prepare for it. Our priority is to keep Scotland moving by all modes of transport. On roads, the winter service that is provided across Scotland from the start of October through to mid-May is a critical front-line service. Winter weather has and will cause disruption on our roads but, with the actions that we are taking and with road users playing their part by planning ahead, together we can get Scotland moving throughout this winter.
New contract specifications, specialist plant trials and innovations, greater use of technology and getting information to people on the move are just a few of the ways in which we have strengthened the winter plan, treatments, decision making and communication with road users.
Enhanced preparedness is also beneficial outside of winter, as the procedures and practices that are in place such as the multiagency response team—MART—improve our resilience for other severe weather episodes and for major events such as the Commonwealth games and the 2014 Ryder cup.
We will continue to invest in and trial more technology to improve decision making and responses by those managing the winter treatments, such as new weather stations and mobile road condition sensors.
Over the past five years, we have strengthened our well-developed winter service even further. High-performance requirements ensure that our road maintenance contractors patrol the most strategically important routes from 1 November, before and through the morning peak, when temperatures are forecast to be low and there is a risk of ice forming. The strategic patrol gritters add to our ploughing capability during snowstorms.
We are continually investing in our winter service, and we have more winter plant this year than ever before. This year’s winter fleet will have 205 vehicles available for spreading salt and ploughing snow, averaging one gritter or plough per 17km of the trunk road network. That is a record high, and it is a 3.5 per cent increase from the start of last season. All of the fleet will be available to provide support to front-line and patrol vehicles, as well as covering breakdowns and essential maintenance.
Since last year, 57 new state-of-the-art gritters have been brought in to replace some older vehicles. Of the total number that are operational across the country 152 gritters are less than three years old. That represents 74 per cent of the total winter fleet for trunk roads.
As of 7 October, there is approximately 674,000 tonnes of salt in stock or on order, including strategic salt. This exceeds the total amount of salt that was used across Scotland for last winter and during the severe winter of 2010-11. A range of new resources are in place to improve intelligence and to monitor, patrol and act where necessary.
Last year our crews went out and cleared the trunk roads of ice and snow approximately 14,000 times, and winter service patrols were operational 6,700 times. We have increased stocks of alternative de-icers to improve our resilience if very low temperatures are forecast.
The purpose-built traffic Scotland national control centre at South Queensferry has improved co-ordination and joint working. All motorways continue to be covered by winter patrols, giving a 30-minute response to incidents.
Control rooms can monitor the temperature on key routes remotely through sensors, and they can see the conditions live via a network of cameras. Road users can keep up to date through a range of media, including internet radio and smart phone updates on the move, in addition to more traditional methods. A record number of people are using our information services with more than 100,000 people now following @trafficscotland, which has its own style of communication, as followers know. There is programme of communications using all channels in a proactive manner to raise awareness of the efforts that go into keeping the trunk roads moving during periods of bad weather such as rain, wind and snow.
We are engaging directly with schools. This year, we have been engaging with schoolchildren to educate them on the winter service on our trunk roads. We are also having an interesting competition to name our gritters. Partnership working is key to making sure that the communications process is as co-ordinated as possible, and Transport Scotland communications will work alongside the trunk road operating companies, contract providers, the traffic Scotland service and relevant partners in the Scottish Government to deliver shared messaging across all channels.
We will also liaise with Police Scotland and other transport providers where appropriate. That will enhance public confidence and make it clear to people that Transport Scotland is well prepared to deal with the conditions that winter may throw at us. That work also sets the scene for the wider Scottish Government ready for winter campaign, which will be launched in early November.
On rail, we are working closely with the ScotRail alliance to prepare for potential severe winter weather. We expect to see further improvements in operational response, customer services and the travel advice offered when compared with severe winters of two and three years ago. The plans for this year feature continued improvements across all ScotRail fleets to improve their robustness to the issues caused by winter weather in previous years.
ScotRail depots and maintenance facilities have additional winter maintenance equipment installed and a winter resilience check has been undertaken for all depots and train fleets. Winter working preparation is on track for all stations and de-icing equipment and materials will be in place. Network Rail has provided additional hand-held snow clearance equipment to local teams and has undertaken a winter resilience audit. Network Rail has also made available new mobile snow and ice clearance machines that can thaw junctions quickly.
Key routes for the busiest passenger flows and business-critical trains have been identified for enhanced resilience measures. A key route strategy has been agreed with all train operators, and a new weather forecasting and alert service has been procured to allow a more localised detail of effects.
In aviation, substantial investment has been made by airports in new measures since 2010 and 2011, and the collective figure for that spending is in excess of £4 million. Examples of that investment include Glasgow Airport, which has invested approximately £3 million in new snow-clearing equipment, including two new runway sweepers, procuring additional resources and improving general resilience, and Aberdeen International Airport, which has invested further with more than £1 million for new snow-clearing and de-icing equipment. Working towards winter 2015-16, our own airport group, Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd, will benefit from advanced weather forecasting at all HIAL airports and from new de-icing sprayers introduced at our smaller airports for resilience purposes.
On ferries, the Scottish Government is committed to maintaining and improving lifeline ferry services that play a key role in supporting the economic, social and cultural development of island and remote communities. However, due to high winds and seasonal weather, disruptions and cancellations to ferry services across the Scottish ferry network are not uncommon during winter. Operators will continue to inform their customers of disruptions and cancellations as a matter of course via notifications on their websites, emails and text messages and by direct contact.
The decision to delay or cancel a sailing is never taken lightly. Ferry operators fully recognise the importance of the ferry service to the island and rural communities that they serve. Ferry travel has its own distinct challenges, particularly high winds, and the ship’s master has a duty to ensure the safety of passengers above other considerations. The Merchant Shipping (Master’s Discretion) Regulations 1997 gives the ship’s master sole responsibility for deciding whether it is safe to travel.
In conclusion, we will learn something new each time Scotland is beset by severe weather. The Scottish Government and the responder community are doing all that we can to build Scotland’s resilience to severe weather for winter and the rest of the year. At a time of severe economic challenges and environmental change, we need to show that Scotland’s infrastructure and services are ready to support our businesses and our people to be the Scotland we all want to see.