Local Transport Strategy

Our Local Transport Strategy objectives

The Local Transport Strategy will support making Renfrewshire a great place to live, work and visit and help us to meet our objectives to:  

• support everyone to use buses and trains
• reduce harmful transport emissions and tackle climate change
• encourage more walking, cycling and wheeling
• improve transport connections within Renfrewshire and to neighbouring local authorities
• improve road safety
• provide well-maintained roads and pavements. 

We're working in a financially challenging period, so we need to choose the changes which make the biggest difference for every pound we spend locally. 

How your views set the strategy 

Working with transport consultants AECOM, we carried out public and partner engagement during Spring 2024 and Summer 2025 to make sure that your views set the direction of the strategy.

You told us about the issues you find with transport and travel in the area, including: 

• low frequency, expensive and unreliable bus and train services
• inadequate information on public transport
• lack of capacity for parking at rail stations
• high speed traffic
• congested roads outside schools
• safety concerns associated with potholes
• the lack of cohesive, segregated and safe traffic-free cycle routes. 

We took your feedback and spoke to transport, environment and equality experts before developing our priorities and actions.

What actions we're taking

We developed a list of options and actions that will be considered for progression over the lifetime of the Local Transport Strategy. 

The action plan is ambitious and aims to deliver significant improvements to the transport landscape within Renfrewshire, with the combined funding requirements to deliver it likely to be more than £50million over the lifetime of this strategy.

Delivery of the actions will not be by the council on its own. It will require a multi-organisation approach and the funding to deliver the actions will also need to come from external, as well as internal, sources.

These are the actions we’ll take, under the following themes:

Active travel: walking, cycling and wheeling

We'll deliver an active travel network everyone can use for everyday journeys by: 

• expanding Renfrewshire’s active travel network to be safe and accessible, in line with locations identified in the proposed Active Travel Network Map
• ensuring the network is well lit, well maintained, with clear signs
• working with regional partners to connect into routes outside Renfrewshire
• working with communities on crossings and junctions to improve safety
• creating a maintenance plan for the active travel network across Renfrewshire, including winter maintenance and removal of vegetation
• looking at options for public bike and e-bike hire schemes and secure cycle parking
• supporting companies delivering small goods to use cargo bikes.

Changing travel behaviours

We want to encourage everyone to swap car journeys for healthier, sustainable options like walking, wheeling and cycling.

To do this, we'll: 

• provide support to parents and carers to apply for young persons' concessionary travel entitlement card
• work with partners to run behaviour change initiatives in schools
• provide more cycle training opportunities for school pupils and adult cycle training for major employers like AMIDS, Braehead, Hillington Park, Inchinnan Business Park, Westway
• support schools and employment centres to develop sustainable travel plans
• provide support to organisations delivering behaviour change within Renfrewshire.

Public transport and transport sharing 

We want to support people to choose to travel less by car and more by bus and train.

These are run by private operators and the Scottish Government, so we'll work with national and regional partners to achieve this.  

Helping to provide community buses and transport sharing, like car clubs and bike hire schemes, will also be an important focus for us.  

For bus and train services, we'll: 

• support bus and train operators to improve integrated ticketing and measures to make ticket prices affordable for everyone
• support the improvement of facilities, including transport information, safety and security at Renfrewshire transport hubs like Paisley Gilmour Street Station
• explore potential for mobility hubs around existing centres, including at Paisley Gilmour Street Station and the Piazza Shopping Centre
• support the removal of physical barriers that make it difficult to use buses, trains and taxis and help ensure ramp access is available at all train stations
• continue support for Clyde Metro and options for its link to Glasgow Airport and AMIDS. 

For bus services, we'll: 

• explore ways to increase the frequency and improve reliability of bus services
• explore ways to expand bus services in Renfrewshire villages and to employment centres
• support SPT to establish local bus franchising - to centralise control of bus services in Renfrewshire and across the Glasgow City Region
• seek to provide a direct, regular bus service from Paisley Gilmour Street station to Glasgow Airport and AMIDS
• support development of bus priority lanes and signals on Glasgow Road, Renfrew Road and Neilston Road in Paisley
• improve bus stops to make it easier to get on and off buses.

For community buses and transport sharing, we'll: 

• help to provide fully accessible community buses, including buses on demand, focusing on people in villages accessing health services
• look at implementing community bus hubs to connect community buses into commercial bus routes.
• help to expand car club schemes across Renfrewshire including schemes with electric vehicles.

Road safety 

Renfrewshire's road network should be safe for everyone and we're working with partners, including Police Scotland, to help reduce incidents. Our actions include: 

• introducing 20mph speed limits on residential streets
• looking at short-term parking restriction measures to reduce congestion outside schools
• using our road safety policy to guide any new road safety measures
• partnering with Police Scotland on priorities for road safety enforcement
• working with secondary schools to promote road safety
• carrying out accident assessments each year to identify locations for improvement.

Parking 

Our 5-year parking strategy sets out how we are providing a modern parking service that supports access to services, businesses and visitor attractions. 

This is while enforcing against illegal parking and improving traffic flow, road safety, reducing congestion and harmful emissions. 

We'll: 

• consider expanding busy park and ride and mobility hub sites, such as Johnstone Station and new sites including at Milliken Park Station, as well as finding ways to serve locations without a train station
• support private sector expansion of the publicly available electric vehicle charging network
• increase the number of disabled parking spaces near Renfrewshire visitor attractions
• continue enforcement of the national pavement parking ban in Renfrewshire and consider potential exempt locations
• investigate the potential for a workplace parking license (a charge on employers for the parking spaces they provide for employees) and/or local road user charging.  

Road network and freight 

Lots of companies use Renfrewshire roads to transport bulk goods, which is called freight.

We want to support this process to be easy and reduce congestion and inconvenience for others by: 

• exploring improvements at Arkleston Road, Seedhill Road, Hawkhead Road and Penilee Road bridge sites in Paisley
• building new transport links in Paisley between Inchinnan Road, Abercorn Street and Renfrew Road
• assessing HGV routing, its road safety, and impact on the environment
• supporting companies to choose transporting goods by rail over road and look at the potential to increase weight allowance for HGVs using Burnbrae Drive in Linwood to access the railhead (freight terminal) here. 

Environment 

We're committed to creating a healthier, greener Renfrewshire and support the work towards net zero. 

Our emissions record means we no longer need any Air Quality Management Areas, but climate change still brings new challenges - and our transport network needs to be resilient. 

We'll: 

• continue air quality monitoring in Johnstone, Paisley and Renfrew to ensure our emissions status remains excellent
• move more council vehicles onto greener alternatives like electric and low emission
• design and deliver measures which strengthen the transport network against severe weather events.

Digital technology 

Through new technology and developments, we can help reduce the need to travel and make travel smarter. We'll do this by: 

• supporting the Glasgow City Region work to develop an on demand, online service showing people the different travel options, with a single payment process
• completing the real time passenger information displays at bus stops in town and village centres
• looking into optimising traffic signal timings to reduce congestion and prioritise bus routes
• extending the full fibre network to help with general connectivity, if new council building dictates this is needed, reducing the need to travel.

How we’ll monitor and evaluate the strategy

We’ll monitor the progress of the strategy on a regular basis using data sources and indicators against our objectives. 

This will help us determine whether actions are on track to be achieved. 

We’ll carry out a final review towards the end of the 10-year period to determine to what extent actions have been achieved, lessons we have learned, and whether actions should be carried forward into future strategies.

How you can read the full strategy 

This page is a summary of our Local Transport Strategy. You can read the strategy for Travel Renfrewshire 2035 in full and its accompanying documents below: