Visitors to Loch Lomond will be able to reach 12 destinations by water on the daily scheduled service. After running a successful pilot project last year Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority hope the water buses will increase tourism and reduce congestion on the roads.

Loch Lomond is a freshwater loch lying on the Highland Boundary Fault, the boundary between the lowlands of Central Scotland and the Highlands.

It is 39 kilometres long and between 1.21 kilometres and eight kilometres wide.

It has an average depth of about 37 metres and a maximum depth of about 190 metres.

Of all lakes in Great Britain, it is the largest by surface area, and the second largest after Loch Ness by water volume.

Within the UK, it is surpassed only by Lough Neagh and Lower Lough Erne in Northern Ireland.

Traditionally a boundary of Stirlingshire and Dunbartonshire, Loch Lomond is located in the current council areas of Stirling, Argyll and Bute, and West Dunbartonshire, and its southern shores lie approximately 23 kilometres north of Glasgow, the country’s largest city.

Loch Lomond is now part of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.

The main arterial route along the loch is the A82 road which runs the length of its western shore. For a long time this was a notorious bottleneck, with the route clogged with tourists during the summer months. It was upgraded in the 1980s and 1990s.

The loch contains over 30 other islands. Several of them are large by the standards of British bodies of freshwater. Inchmurrin, for example, is the largest island in a body of freshwater in the British Isles. As in Loch Tay, several of the islands appear to be crannogs, artificial islands built in prehistoric periods.