Community Transport

Increasing car dependency and car ownership in rural areas is leading to a reduction in the continued viability of conventional rural public transport services. This places considerable pressure on the Council's role as a provider of socially-necessary transport services.

• advice
• projects
• training

Consideration of alternative methods of maintaining and developing existing services is therefore required. Various unconventional passenger services currently operate in Aberdeenshire including dial-a-ride, voluntary car schemes and community buses.

The Council, in partnership with local communities, will consider introducing further unconventional public transport services. The use of community minibuses, taxis and private hire vehicles to provide local community transport services, and support for such schemes, will be investigated.

The Council has requested that the Scottish Government considers the relaxation of current legislative constraints on maximising the use of local authority-owned vehicles in this context. It will continue to explore other innovative means of providing passenger and combined passenger-goods services in rural areas with support from the Rural Transport Fund.

NB: restrictions apply on certain services. Please check the individual service pages for more information.