Bus and rail passenger figures from Isle of Man Transport support reports that the 2015 TT fortnight was the busiest for several years.

A total of 217,560 passengers were carried on all three heritage railways and bus vannin services between 1 and 12 June 2015 generating an income of ?427,000.

Visitors seemed to embrace the new Go smart travel cards with almost 5,000 sold during the fortnight in addition to pre-sales by tour operators and online.

The busiest days were the Friday of Practice Week (5 June 2015) on all services and the Thursday of Race Week (11 June 2015) when the Manx Electric Railway carried 2,000 people to Laxey and hordes of people went on the Steam Railway. In fact, with more than 281 people boarding the late morning train to Port Erin, every available carriage was used.

Kate Beecroft MHK, Political Member responsible for Public Transport, paid tribute to the staff, many of whom worked long hours during the fortnight.

She said: ‘TT is an extremely testing time for everyone involved in operating public transport and I want to say a huge well done to every member of staff who pulled out all the stops to make it a bumper TT for Isle of Man Transport.

‘We should also acknowledge that Government investment in our transport infrastructure has helped achieve these remarkable passenger numbers. As well as providing a fleet of modern, reliable buses, the Ticketer system that was installed in August, enables us to obtain accurate figures and insight into passenger journeys. It also shows that for the first time we carried more smart card passengers than cash fare-paying passengers during the TT, which is a significant shift.’