ScotRail has reminded passengers that its timetable will change from Sunday 21 May, and has urged them to check their journeys before they travel.

Services between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh via Falkirk High on Saturdays will increase to fifteen-minute frequency. ScotRail has made the change because growing numbers of passengers are using the service outside peak times and Saturday is now the busiest day on the route.

The number of passengers using ScotRail services rose by over a third (thirty-six per cent) in 2022/23, from 46.8 million the previous year to 63.7 million. Since March 2023, the numbers travelling off-peak has been similar to numbers before the Covid-19, but journeys by commuters are just under two-thirds of what they used to be.

Having monitored changes in passenger demand, ScotRail increased services in Clydesdale, Lanarkshire and West Lothian last December, and now runs more trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow on the routes via Shotts and Carstairs.

The May 2023 timetable continues these improvements and schedules faster journey times on services between Ayr and Glasgow.

Ardrossan and Largs services will now call at stations in the Garnock Valley, which will free up space for additional passengers traveling to Troon while Calmac’s Arran services are diverted there.

ScotRail plans to operate more daytime and evening services next year, to cater for leisure trips to the seaside and Glasgow’s hospitality venues.

More trains will operate between Ayr and Kilmarnock and services times will change to improve connections to Dumfries and Carlisle.

ScotRail will also run two trials:

• more services between Dundee and Edinburgh which call at Cupar, with two trains running per hour rather than just one
• an extra return journey between Glasgow and Oban on Sundays during the summer, as a replacement for the poorly-used Edinburgh to Oban service.

In Inverclyde, ScotRail is to remove the fast services between Glasgow and Gourock outside peak periods. The operator claims that this change will help to reliably operate the core Inverclyde service of at least three trains per hour during the day, with extra fast services at peak times.

ScotRail is now working on future timetables for services in Inverclyde, to help accommodate rising passenger numbers. It will share these plans with passengers and stakeholders in Inverclyde in the coming months, and will consider the feedback it receives when drawing up the new timetables.

A few daytime services will operate on the Cathcart Circle in South Glasgow from May, and subject to enough drivers completing training, this will increase to an hourly service from December.

Due to issues with driver training that arose during the Covid-19 pandemic, ScotRail cannot operate as many trains as it would like to. The total number of weekday services remains consistent with the December 2022 timetable at around 2,100 per day.

The operator is trying to recruit more trainee drivers, but is limited in the number of services which it can operate until it clears its training backlog.

With the new timetable coming into force, passengers are encouraged to check their journey on the ScotRail website, mobile app, and through social media channels as train times may have changed.

Check train times and download timetables from the ScotRail website.

David Simpson, ScotRail Service Delivery Director, said: “Our new timetable is another step forward for Scotland’s Railway, as we continue to recover from the impact of the pandemic.

“The way people travel has dramatically changed in the past two years, and we are doing everything we can to provide them with the best possible service.

“Increasing the frequency of trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow is a major milestone on the road to recovery, and we have essentially introduced entirely new timetables between Ayrshire and Glasgow, and Inverclyde and Glasgow.

“There is a lot of investment in Scotland’s Railway, with decarbonisation continuing and improvements across the network, and this new timetable is an important part of that.”