What is CTA’s Mapping Scotland Project

We’re running our mapping Scotland project  in partnership with our members and Transport Scotland. Through the project, we’re going to gather new data and evidence to build a national picture about our sector, the communities you serve and the difference you make. Our goal is to produce the first-ever map of Scotland’s community transport sector: a reliable, source of useful information about our sector on everything from operators, their activities and their vehicles, to staff, volunteers and users

Why are we doing this?

1) We need to help our sector to recover from the pandemic. COVID-19 has proven how valuable community transport is, but it’s also been a really challenging period. Now we need to come together to make the case for change to secure better policymaking, greater recognition and more funding.

2) We need to prepare for the future. Our sector faces a number of major challenges, such as an ageing population, funding, recruitment and the transition to net-zero. We need to understand the nature and scale of these issues to demand, design or deliver the investment and support our sector needs.

3) We need to raise our profile. A lack of awareness or understanding of community transport among some politicians and policymakers is holding us back. We need to showcase the diversity and strength of our sector.

4) We need to identify gaps and opportunities. Finding out where there is community transport as well as where there is no provision, will enable us to create new platforms or forums, facilitate knowledge share or collaboration and even support the creation of new operators or services. It will also help integrate our sector into wider work around transport planning and integration, like ‘plan your journey’ apps or Mobility as a Service.

What are our next steps?

We’ll send an survey to all CTA members in early 2022. It will be provisionally pre-filled with the information from our membership records or which is available online. All you need to do is check the details are correct. We’ll ask about your services, your vehicles and your staff and volunteers.

We’ll also meet with partners, stakeholders and other organisations for more in-depth discussions. This will help us capture some of the rich, qualitative evidence which can be harder than quantitative data to gather from surveys.

As said above, this is a CTA project funded by Transport Scotland. The project also benefits from a steering group of CTA members, to ensure it is fit for purpose and answers members’ needs.

Timescales

The following dates make up our project timescales:

January 2022: The survey is sent to all CTA members, giving everyone 3 months to respond

April 2022: survey closes. The results’ analysis begins, along with in-depth discussions with stakeholders. We begin the spatial representation of CT across Scotland.

August 2022: we publish the inaugural Mapping Scotland report. Personalised data sheets are issued to every CTA member.

September 2022: the map enables us to build new forums and platforms for CTA members, to address gaps in provision, to improve our policy and public affairs work and strengthen our relationships with our partners and funders, including Transport Scotland.

January 2023: the second annual survey is sent to all CTA members, asking for any updates or changes. Annual updates enable us to identify, monitor and analyse changes and trends in our sector.

Impact:

Our aim is for the project to have the following impacts:

• Annual updates on the community transport sector across Scotland, its evolution and its challenges
• Useful insights into future challenges and opportunities
• New, up-to-date communications materials, like a personalised data sheet, prepared for you by CTA
• Better representation of your activities and interests in our efforts to champion our sector and to influence local and national government
• Greater awareness and understanding of community transport among partners, policymakers and stakeholders
• New opportunities to learn from or collaborate with operators like you or near you through new platforms and forums
• New opportunities to learn from and explore different operating models like social enterprise

Get in touch

If you want to talk to us about the project, you can get in touch with our Scotland team via scotland@ctauk.org. You can also contact  David Kelly, Director for Scotland via david.kelly@ctauk.org and Nicola Mitchell, Development Officer for Scotland via nicola.mitchell@ctauk.org