Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel continues to make a difference to their lives, with over 200 million journeys made since launch three years ago.
Cabinet Secretary for Transport Fiona Hyslop said:
“We’re here in East Kilbride at a training facility where I’m meeting young people who are using their bus pass to travel and study. We know the free bus pass helps people to study, it helps them to go to work, it helps them meet their family and also for leisure facilities. And today we’re marking 200 million passenger journeys with the free bus pass.
“Well, I was very impressed with the young people today, hearing about their studies here and also hearing about how they use the free young bus pass from the Scottish Government. So, they use it to travel to work, and it opens up opportunities and choices for them to study and for them to do the type of work and to do the type of study that they might not have had the opportunity to do.”
Braydan, young apprentice said:
“I commute from [the] Cumbernauld area. I get a bus into Glasgow in the morning which takes about half an hour, then I’ve got to get a secondary bus from Glasgow Central back out towards East Kilbride.
“I’ve recently just moved house so it saves me a fortune, due to the fact that obviously with new rent and stuff and obviously being on an engineers apprentice wage, it saves me roughly about £50 a week. So I’m saving a lot of money being able to do this.
“So, the Young Scot card’s able to let me get to those place without having to put any extra money out my pocket.
Cabinet Secretary for Transport Fiona Hyslop said:
“There’s 800,000 young people benefitting from it. It helps us tackle child and family poverty which is our First Minister’s mission, by helping reduce family income expenditure on travel. But it also helps tackle climate change because we’re encouraging people to use buses and habit form when they’re under 22, so hopefully they’ll continue to use the bus pass and the buses well into the future.”.
