The North East Scotland is a physically diverse area, with its boundary of the Cairngorm Mountains to the west and 250 km of coastline to the east and north. In between is a mixture of forest, moorland and productive farmland. At 6,474 km² the combined area of Aberdeenshire and the gateway city of Aberdeen covers 8 % of the total area of Scotland, while it is home to 8.5 % of the country’s population, at 439,000, 48 % of whom live in Aberdeen.

There are few settlements of substantial size in Aberdeenshire, Peterhead 18,800, Fraserburgh 13,000, on the NE coast, Stonehaven 10,400, South of Aberdeen and Inverurie 10,600, inland of Aberdeen. Inland there are a few small towns but Aberdeenshire is predominately a rural area.

Almost 29,000 people commute from Aberdeenshire into Aberdeen every day and the majority of these live within a fifteen-mile radius around the city, from Stonehaven in the south, Banchory and Inverurie and to Ellon in the North. Travelling in the other direction, 16,000 Aberdeen residents work in Aberdeenshire and many more go there for recreation and leisure.

The economy of the North East is highly dynamic and creative, the growth of which in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is sustained annually above the national average. It is the only part of the UK to have consistently outperformed the growth of the global economy over the last 20 years.

The region contributes £8.1 billion annually to the UK economy, while Aberdeen’s GDP, for example of £43,000 per head is 43% higher than the Scottish average. Unemployment in the region is very low. In April 2002 the unemployment rates in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen were 2% and 1.6% respectively.

Oil and gas, agriculture, food and beverage processing and fishing are the industry sectors most commonly associated with the region and these service sectors account for over half of the regions employment.

There is an international Airport in Aberdeen and a regional airport in Inverness. There are rail links to both the south and north passing through the area. Freight services operate from the harbours at Aberdeen, Peterhead, Fraserburgh and MacDuff and passenger services operate to the Shetlands and Orkney from Aberdeen.

Aberdeenshire is a physically diverse area with a mix of mountains, coastal areas, forest, moorland and farmland, with very few large settlements. Aberdeenshire is seen by some as being a periphery area not only to the rest of Scotland and the UK but also to Europe.

The challenge for Aberdeenshire is to develop a transportation strategy for both passengers and freight movement in Aberdeenshire, which preserves and enhances environmental quality, while contributing to the development of an inclusive society and a strong economy.

For passengers, improving accessibility helps to ensure a good quality of life for all residents of Aberdeenshire. Debate centres on whether the goal should be improving mobility or increasing people's accessibility to services - not necessarily the same thing. The Council recognises that certain groups have particular accessibility needs - disabled, elderly and young people and women, for example. These needs will be assessed and addressed in co-operation with operators.

The importance of developing external links by rail, sea and air are recognised, as well as the vital role in local distribution played by road freight. The Council supports the expansion of services from Aberdeen Airport and the harbours in Aberdeenshire and at Aberdeen. The North East Scotland Rail Freight Development Group, of which the Council is a lead partner, works to increase the amount of freight moved by rail to and from the North East. The Group is assessing customers' needs and consults with and lobbies all relevant parties to improve infrastructure and services. The Council is also in discussion regarding setting up a Freight Quality Partnership with interested parties, to address local distribution issues.

There are a number of goals that Aberdeenshire hopes to achieve with the work carried out to develop a Local Transport Strategy and with help from the SustAccess Project over the next two years.

• To combat social exclusion by improving accessibility to services and employment opportunities
• To promote sustainable development of the economy
• To understand the contribution that transport planning can make to the reversal of local degradation of the environment
• To ensure that transport planning takes account of all other relevant policies and total journey considerations to further the integration of transport
• To improve safety in transport

In Aberdeenshire, the aims of the SustAccess project have been progressed through four different projects. These projects are:

1. Review of Park and Ride in Aberdeenshire (finished)

2. Transport Problems and Solutions (finished)

3. Freight Study (finished)

4. Business Travel Reduction Project – IT Hot Stop (ongoing)

Business Travel Reduction Project – IT Hot Stop

The aim of the IT Hot Stop project has been to investigate the potential of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to reduce business mileage and the need to travel for meetings. Two satellite offices, or IT Hot Stops, have been set up in the Huntly Learning Centre (in Huntly) and the Burnside Business Centre (in Peterhead).

The aim of these centres is to provide locations suitable for remote working and meetings without travel and thereby contribute to the Council’s work to promote travel awareness, reduce congestion and emissions, and at the same time support the local business community by improving the accessibility of businesses in rural areas.

The project was initiated in early 2005 when a site identification study was commissioned to highlight potential locations for the IT Hot Stops across Aberdeenshire. Following this study, Huntly and Peterhead were selected as the most suitable sites to pilot this innovative project. Once the sites were agreed, the relevant tendering work to secure the accommodation and to equip them with state-of-the-art IT facilities was undertaken.

The IT Hot Stops include PCs for ‘hot-desk’ working, video-conferencing equipment and Wi-Fi access, enabling those people with their own laptops to work remotely from the centres. The IT Hot Stops were launched in September 2006. The launches took the form of open days, with officers on hand to show interested members of the public the facilities on offer at the IT Hot Stop. Formal launches were also staged over the lunchtime period, with speeches from politicians both based in Aberdeenshire, and via video-conference in Sweden. Leaflets, posters, bus panel and radio advertising have also been used to promote the facilities.

Following the successful launch of the IT Hot Stops in Huntly and Peterhead, the opportunity was identified to establish a similar facility in Aberdeen City in order to ‘complete the loop’ i.e. provide free video-conferencing facilities from a city centre basis. To achieve this, an investigation has been undertaken to identify potential suitable sites to create an Aberdeen IT Hot Stop. Through this, a partnership has been set up between Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeen College relating to the use of the College’s video-conferencing equipment as part of the SustAccess project.

Secondly, a partnership has also been established with the SusSET Interreg IIIC Project to develop an extranet website facility which will be used to promote each of the small towns signed up to the project (including the SustAccess town of Huntly) and to support business efficiency and information exchange between these towns.

Ongoing work involves continued marketing and promotion of the IT Hot Stops and monitoring of their usage.

Review of Park and Ride in Aberdeenshire

A review was conducted into the development of inter-urban park and ride sites within Aberdeenshire. The full aims of the study were to:

Review the development of existing and proposed inter-urban Park and Ride sites in Aberdeenshire.

Benchmark the existing site’s (Ellon) performance against (any) similar schemes in the UK, drawing out best practice.

Evaluate the outcomes of the existing site (Ellon).

Identify further areas for development of Park and Ride.

Assess contribution to aims, objectives and targets of Local Transport Strategy and North East Scotland Transport Partnership (NESTRANS) Modern Transport System (MTS) strategy.

Following a desktop review, a process of data monitoring and evaluation of the service was undertaken, including patronage levels, car park occupancy surveys and face-to-face user surveys, in order to establish current patterns of usage and also to identify reasons for the use of Park and Ride and areas for future improvement.

A Final Report was submitted in March 2006.

The results of this review have subsequently been used to aid the identification of further areas for park and ride development in Aberdeenshire, supporting the aims, objectives and output targets of the Council’s Local Transport Strategy. The report has also been shared with the North East Respond Transport Partnership (Nestrans) to assist in the development of the Regional Transport Strategy.

Transport Problems and Solutions Study

To improve the understanding of Aberdeenshire’s transport problems, and potential solutions, consultants were employed to undertake an extensive travel survey. A detailed telephone questionnaire was designed and over 1400 residents, across Aberdeenshire Council’s six administrative areas, were contacted and completed the questionnaire.

Particular objectives of this study were:

to identify public transport and wider transport issues in the hinterlands surrounding ‘gateway settlements’ where gateway settlements are settlements which are local service centres and provide points of access to a wider public transport network.

to examine issues in relation to the city of Aberdeen and to a selection of other local gateway settlements.

to consider the needs of commuters and other travellers and so feed into the local transport strategy.

In total, 1445 telephone interviews were conducted in June and July 2005. The study was useful in providing general quantitative information on travel patterns and behaviour in Aberdeenshire. For example, the survey was used to examine the key travel destinations, the key modes of travel, and the reasons for travel in Aberdeenshire. The study has also been useful in confirming the key gateway settlements in the region. Furthermore, the study identified key settlements that are lacking good transport links and has helped to identify areas where the Council should target service improvements.

A Final Report was submitted in September 2005.

Freight study

The main objective of the study was to identify and access future development opportunities that would increase rail freight. The North East of Scotland; maximised the benefits of the works to improve the structure cause of the rail from Mossend (Glasgow) to Elgin, near Aberdeen.

The output from the study will be used by Aberdeenshire Council and Nestrans to assist in the development and implementation of the local and Regional Transport Strategies.

In October 2006, as part of the SustAccess Rail Freight Study, a workshop was held in Aberdeen examining potential opportunities for rail freight development in the North East. This workshop was attended by around 35 people from a wide range of interest groups and also included presentations by rail freight experts from the UK and USA.

A Final Report was submitted in February 2007.