New disruption warnings keep customers better informed

Ferry operator CalMac is changing the way it alerts customers to disrupted services following feedback from passengers.

An additional service status of yellow is being added to the existing green, amber and red categories on their website to give passengers clearer information about potential disruption.

"We asked the public what we could do to make their journey easier in the face of weather disruption and the overwhelming response was that they wanted more information," said CalMac's director of operations, Drew Collier.

"Feedback told us that the existing amber alert covered too broad a range of situations and caused confusion. This new yellow alert now separates out potential disruption from actual disruption on a route.

"We are committed to improving the services we offer, and listening and responding to our customers needs plays a big part in this. This change comes on the back of the introduction of a dedicated twitter service updates account which, since it started has sent out 36,000 tweets helping our customers keep up to date with timetable changes.

"Weather on the west coast of Scotland will always be a challenge so giving customers as much accurate, up to date information as possible will allow them to plan their journey to take account of all eventualities."

The yellow alert will be used to tell customers to remain aware and check for updates to their service before travelling, as there is a possibility of disruption. Amber alerts will now be used to inform customers that one or more sailings are disrupted. This includes significant delays , cancelled sailings, suspended sailings, diverted sailings or vessels turned back unable to berth. The red alert will continue to be used to indicate when all sailings on a route are cancelled for the remainder of the day.

The new alert system will be live on www.calmac.co.uk from April 11 and will also apply to Argyll Ferries' service from Gourock to Dunoon.