Bus fares should be capped - your views online

Bus fares in Scotland’s towns and cities should be capped at £2 to narrow the disparity between free travel for some passengers and high prices being paid by the rest, a think tank created by Gordon Brown has urged.

Bus fares in Scotland should be capped at #2 says a Gordon Brown thinktank

Lorraine Blyth

Or if the Scottish government could actually explain why every person (because surely 18-22-year-olds are legally adults) between birth and 22 and then again from 60+ even if they are in full time employment for at least another five years gets free travel?

Alex Monaghan

The free travel for under 22s is nothing but a pitch at securing votes for the SNP from that generation. Means the rest of us have to cough up more in fares.

William Hatton

This is firsst decent suggestion Gordon Brown has ever made.

Allyson Harper

I was in Fife/Edinburgh last September and thought the bus fares were cheap!

Stewart Nichol

A great initiative to ween the population off private transport. A step in the right direction. Amazing to see so many selfish people in Edinburgh as the sole occupant of their vehicle. Complete madness.

Alun Thomas

If the bus service is 'free', then they will need to increase the number of buses and drivers first. If they don't, people will be left at bus stops. Everyone needs to appreciate nothing is 'free', it's taxpayers who pay for these 'freebies'.

Ken Johnston

Huge disparity on fares. You can go from Seton Sands to Clerwood for £1.80, but to go from Seton Mains (which is closer to Edinburgh than Seton Sands) to Prestonpans - a mere 250 yards - costs £2.60. Crazy!

Ggavin Mmarkham

Does anyone listen to thinktanks set up by Goordon Brown? His best thinktank robbed pensioners of £120 billion and he funded and supported the war in Iraq, which we are still paying for. Discredited politician with an agenda.

Lucy McArthur

The people that don’t get free travel pick up the cost of people that get free travel. It’s a very unfair system. I remember my 28-day bus pass when I was at college was £82 and didn’t last me the full month. That was saving me money, but because it was a 28-day buss pass this resulted in me being unable to attend college one day every month. No one should ever be put in that position.

Danny Murphy

I think if we had a nationalised bus service that was funded from taxes and not run for profit, with free travel for all, the uptake would be much more and the everyday working person would be more inclined to travel this way and leave their car at home.

Ryan Cowie

Everyone’s complaining but I think they forget that young people are on a younger rate of pay. If we scrapped the pay difference between ages we wouldn’t need free travel for young people.

David Boswell

Money has to come from somewhere. Staff, road tax and diesel is not cheap plus a new double deck bus is £300k+

Ricky Markham

Considering how well the energy “price cap” worked to the favour of the great British public, I’m sure this will be a roaring success! (Or an open invitation for bus companies to put their fares up to £2 per trip?)

Nicola Barr

I am always shocked by bus and train costs. Edinburgh peeps are so lucky with cost and service. Spend time in Fife, it’s unreal. To go to Dunfermline less than 15 miles just under £8. I travelled from Bay to the vaccination centre Ingilston and cost me £13. The worst bit was £2 each way to Inverkeithing – less than 3 miles.

Phoebe Goodwin

Hasn't Luxembourg made all public transport free? Now there's a novel idea, eh?

Chris Horne for Linlithgow

At the moment our bus industry is in a perilous state, with not enough customers to make it worth running many services. To then cap fares sounds lovely, but who's paying? Taxpayer. But who's using them? Still not many, because people love a car if they can afford it.

Scott Robertson

The money wasted on the trams could have subsidised free travel for everyone in the Edinburgh area for years.

Diane Scott

Buses in the Falkirk council area are extortionate - and they wonder why we don't use them!

Elaine Burt

It’s £1.80 in Edinburgh - still under £2.

Robert Howlieson

That ould mean a price rise in Edinburgh

Kacey Milne

Does Gordon use the bus?

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