The number of UK passengers taking ferry trips is growing, with the increase more marked on those ferries plying Scottish waters.
Nearly 28 million people travelled by ferry in the first eight months of this year, a 2.6 per cent rise on the total for January to August last year, industry body Discover Ferries announced. But the Scottish passenger ferry figures for this period are 4.2 per cent up, to 4,520,000, from 4,338,000 for the same period in 2013.
Cars carried on Scottish ferries for this period are 3 per cent up, to 1,079,000, from 1,048,000 last year.
A spokesman for Discover Ferries said of the Scottish statistics: "These are impressive passenger growth figures."
The figures relate to CalMac routes on the Clyde and to the Hebrides, NorthLink services to Orkney and Shetland. Also included are the inter-island routes operated by Orkney and Shetland islands councils by their companies Orkney Ferries and Shetland Island Ferries respectively.
Meanwhile, over the UK almost 15 million took trips in the June to August period, with more than seven million choosing Continental ferry routes.
Of the summer travellers, nearly 5.9 million visited UK domestic destinations by ferry, such as the Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, Channel Islands and Scottish Islands, and nearly two million took a ferry to Ireland.
More than six million cars were carried on UK ferry routes in the first eight months of 2014 - up 1.3 per cent on the same period last year, with 2.77 million cars ferried on Continental routes, 2.47 million on UK domestic island routes, and 816,000 cars carried on Irish ferry routes.
Discover Ferries director Bill Gibbons said: "The year-to-date growth in ferry passenger traffic continues a growth momentum started last year, when 38 million ferry passengers were carried - up a million on 2012."
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