Meeting of the Parliament 17 May 2023
Had my amendment been chosen, it would have called on the Scottish Government to extend the under-22s free bus entitlement to ferries, which in many island communities are used in the same way as bus services. That would help with the aim of the policy to encourage more people to use public transport, which would create a habit for the future.
In order to reach our ambitious net zero targets, buses will need to play a significant role. Scrapping our diesel fleets is a priority. Having more people on buses will help us to lower emissions, reduce traffic and lower the need for road building.
One double-decker bus can take seventy-five cars off our roads, but bus services are failing communities across Scotland. Transport Scotland’s household survey on transport and travel in Scotland in 2021—which was, admittedly, a difficult year for public transport figures—found that although 42 per cent of adults who responded used a bus at least once a month in large urban areas, only 12 per cent did so in remote rural areas. The same survey showed that those in our remote rural, accessible rural and small remote towns were among the most likely to have access to a car.
The Age Scotland briefing highlights that two thirds of over-60s in remote and rural areas either do not have a bus pass or do not use it, while almost 60 percent of single-pensioner households do not have access to a car. Buses need to be as convenient as cars if we are to be successful in increasing their usage. However, cars in rural and island locations are often a necessity because of geography and sparse populations.
Scottish Liberal Democrats have been calling for a model similar to that of Transport for London, to reregulate buses using local transport boards, which would choose the routes and timings. Bus companies can bid for those, allowing communities to decide where buses can go.
Changes by a previous transport minister, which gave powers back to local authorities to run their own bus services were a move in the right direction, but a lack of funding for local authorities inhibits that option’s full potential.
True reform needs appropriate funding to make it happen. When it is time to review services, so much can have changed in the interim years of a contract that once-popular routes might have declined, while the need for a new route might not have been detected because potential users have found other means to travel. Confidence in the service subsequently goes down and the spiral continues.
As the motion states, bus ticket price rises in the middle of a cost of living crisis have hit commuters hard, and route cancellations make it difficult for many shift workers, who find themselves hard pressed to find bus services that tie in with their work patterns. We need to look at how we can improve the provision of services outside of rush hours without running empty services.
With a general move to more people working from home, commuter services are not the only infrastructure for us to consider. In rural and island areas, superfast broadband roll-out is still not complete, despite the SNP commitment to do that by 2021, while mobile connectivity remains patchy. Digital exclusion prevents people from accessing everyday services, including travel apps, or from finding bus information.
Finally, national infrastructure, such as tunnels for island communities, would help to reduce some of the greatest contributors to carbon emissions in the isles—ferry journeys.