A NEW park and choose facility at Rosyth train station could be timetabled as part of plans to speed up bus journeys and boost passenger numbers.

Fife Council is teaming up with other councils in eastern Scotland to prepare bids for Transport Scotland’s Bus Partnership Fund so they can open up Kingdom roads to mass transit, prioritising it over public cars where possible.

Among the plans thought to be mooted are a park and choose facility at Rosyth train station and a similar facility at the Tay Road Bridge for Fifers who work in Dundee.

However, no concrete plans have been agreed yet and Derek Crowe, Fife Council’s head of transportation, says the funding bids will finance more detailed studies of what would benefit the region the most.

He told a council committee last week: “These are just bids to get more money to carry out more detailed appraisals and develop business cases to get really into the detail of these potentially high-value projects.

“These could lead to some very positive improvements down the line that can only make our bus services more attractive.

“The Roysth park and choose, improving the corridors to the Firth of Forth and from St Andrews to Dundee, improving connections within Fife, they’re all part of that.”

Transport minister Michael Matheson announced the Bus Partnership Fund last year as a means of promoting greater bus usage in Scotland.

Over the last decade, bus journeys have fallen by a fifth across the country while private car ownership has risen by 13 per cent.

The hope among transport officials is that faster bus journeys – via a number of means, from bus lanes to traffic lights that prioritise public transport – and greater obstacles for drivers will nudge people onto buses, unclogging roads and improving air quality.

The Fife Bus Partnership – made up of Fife Council and local bus companies – will stake its claim to some of the cash to cover the majority of the region but is teaming up with Tayside and South-Eastern councils for projects that straddle council borders.