The Scottish Government announced that mainland Scotland would enter a lockdown (effective from Tuesday 5 January) for the remainder of the month of January, in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19 and better protect our health services.

This new lockdown requires most people to stay at home, although additional exceptions are in place. These exceptions can be found on the Scottish Government website here: https://bit.ly/3hHHcD8. Although you can travel for the purposes listed there, you should stay as close to home as possible e.g., shop online or use local shops/services wherever you can, and travel no further than you need to reach to a safe, non-crowded place to exercise in a socially-distanced way.

As has been the case throughout the course of the pandemic, Lothian will continue to provide services for keyworkers and those who must make essential journeys at this time. Once again, we want to thank all our customers for their continued cooperation and understanding at this challenging time, as well as our colleagues who’ve continue to work hard to meet the needs of our customers across the last 10 months.

In the main, our existing plans for a Saturday Service (operating Mondays to Saturdays) for the remainder of January will continue. On Sundays, services will continue to operate with a Sunday timetable. As always we continue to monitor customer numbers and if circumstances suggest further changes are necessary, we will amend as appropriate. Some minor changes to Airlink, Services 15 and 47B will be in effect from Sunday 10 January – further information about this can be found below.

Any subsequent change to service levels will be dependent on updated guidance from the Scottish Government. As soon as we have further information, we will provide an update via our website and social media channels. We would advise all customers to plan their essential journeys in advance where possible via our Lothian app or via the journey planner on our website.

 

Minor service changes

From Sunday 10 January we will be introducing some minor changes as follows:

Airlink

A later journey from the city to Edinburgh Airport will be introduced at 00:00, returning from the airport at 00:30.

Service 15

Additional journeys will be introduced on Mondays to Fridays in the morning and evening peak to provide extra capacity for staff and students at Easter Bush Campus

Service 47B

New journeys will be introduced on Mondays to Fridays to provide links from Newington/Liberton to Easter Bush Campus.  Some journeys will commence or extend to Granton Harbour, but daytime journeys will terminate at Potterrow. The southern terminus will be at Pentland Science Park, the same as Service 15.

These extra journeys will operate in addition to the current Saturday timetables in operation on both the 15 & 47.

 

TravelHubs

Our Waverley, Shandwick Place, Livingston and Musselburgh TravelHubs are closed until further notice. For customers who require to top-up Ridacards, please visit any store which has PayPoint facilities (enter your postcode here to find your nearest retailer). For any other Ridacard/ticketing information, please visit our FAQ page.

 

Essential Journeys and Safe Travel Steps

If you are a key worker or someone who must make an essential journey at this time, please ensure you are aware of all current safe travel advice before setting off. This includes the wearing of face coverings for the duration of your journey (unless you have a legitimate exemption), leaving windows open, washing/sanitising hands before and after travelling, and sitting apart from other passengers. Full guidance can be found here. We have put these measures in place to keep customers and colleagues as safe as possible, but we need everyone to play their part by following them as closely as possible.

We would also encourage you to download the Protect Scotland app from NHS Scotland’s Test and Protect. Completely free, the mobile phone app is designed to help us protect one another, reduce the spread of coronavirus and avoid further lockdowns. The app will alert you if you have been in close contact with another app user who tests positive for coronavirus. And if you test positive, it can help in determining contacts that you may have otherwise missed while keeping your information private and anonymous. You can find out more or download here.

 

Lost Property

Our Lost Property department continues to operate as normal at this time. If you think you’ve left an item behind on one of our services, please complete our online Lost Property form here and a member of the team will be in touch directly to help. Attendance at the department to collect an item is only by pre-arranged appointment – please do not go to the department if you’ve not been given a collection date/time by a member of the team.

 

Advice and FAQs for our customers

If you have questions about travel, ticketing, etc., please visit our FAQ page here: https://bit.ly/38dWcpa.