UK: The Scottish Government is to provide up to £9m of emergency funding for the Glasgow Subway and Edinburgh Trams to help mitigate the financial impact of the drop in ridership as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The emergency measures announced on July 7 will be in place from July to the end of September.
The government said its announcement followed detailed discussions with the publicly-owned operators, both of which had been able to use draw on existing reserves for the past three months.
‘The services provide essential capacity and link with bus, rail and park and ride facilities’, said Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure & Connectivity Michael Matheson. ‘Over the next three months we will provide up to £9m of financial support to operators to enable services to continue. Any restrictions on these services could have placed unsustainable demands on other modes, especially bus, and so this funding will assist capacity across all public transport.’
Matheson added that ‘we will continue to monitor the demand, capacity and costs of support across all transport modes over the coming months’.
Chair of Edinburgh Trams Martin Dean said the funding would ‘help to support our efforts and keep our services operational. However, 2020 will remain a challenging year for the organisation’.
