Free bus travel for under-22s across Scotland is to start in January - your views online

"Tremendous idea, just inviting the anti-social, bus-attacking, night time behaviour from outside onto the bus itself!”

Free bus travel will be increased to 19 to 21-year-olds after an SNP Budget deal with the Scottish Greens, hailed by co-leader Patrick Harvie

Free bus travel

Free bus travel for under-22s across Scotland is to start in January

Mark Geddes

Nice idea, but unfortunately the Ned element will just be able to use the buses more often and cause more antisocial behaviour. Lothian Bus drivers don’t tackle anti-social behaviour as it is. They have cameras upstairs that the drivers just ignore when the kids are messing around and they can hear them playing loud music and still do nothing.

Tully Tulley

Why not free public bus transport for everyone - under 22s, over 60s? Just include everyone and running cars will decline. Hard to tell people to ditch the car when public transport costs a fair bit.

Fiona Osborne Smith

Brilliant! Maybe under 18s, but that will def help transport poverty and employers!

Alan Sayers

Is that the same youths that have targeted Edinburgh's buses with stones etc? What about those who slog, working long, unsociable hours for low wages; the ones that have kept this country going through Covid and the lockdown, the cleaners, the delivery drivers, the shop/Supermarket assistants, the people working in services? Yeah, the ones that work could do with a little help on their wage packets.

Margaret Georgeson

That helps to explain the £10 rise in brown bin uplift!

Scott Watson

Tremendous idea, just inviting the anti-social, bus-attacking, night time behaviour from outside onto the bus itself!

John Keating

Would it not work out cheaper to give all the under 22s a bike so even more cyclists can not use the cycle lanes?

Ged Douglas

Since when was a 21 year old a youth?

Susanne Finlay

Watch the anti-social behaviour increase even more…

Graham Meighan

I’m reading a lot of people against this and some for it. All I would say is if any young person is caught acting in an anti-social manner, whether it be throwing stones at buses or abusing passengers, are they going to get their pass taken off them foreve? I’d like to think so. Also how are the government going to pay for this, given it’s possibly going cost millions?

Chris Findlay

Only in Scotland can people turn a positive thing into a negative one. Sad really.

Carol Heart

Unbelievably stupid idea. Wait until you can't get a seat because Karen and her chums are on a day out.

Zackery Smith

So, very few if any outside rush hours will be paying any bus fares? This is ridiculous and who's paying for it? Everyone else.

Morag Stuart

Nothing is free - what other service(s) is being cut to pay for this bribe?And a really opportune time to be handing out indiscriminate "freebies" - not.

Lorraine Blyth

It’s not free travel. The payment will be clawed back from the able bodied workers between ages 23 and 60 who use public transport.

Anna Mosspaul

All very well providing free travel for the under 22s and over 60s, but will the Scottish government also ensure that all bus routes and timetables actually meet the needs of the present travelling public, paying or non-paying ? More bus services, especially in rural areas, and reverse of the cuts that have taken place.

Donna Arnot

Good in some sense at peak times for work, but a lot youngsters will hang around on buses causing trouble till god knows when, then poor drivers will get the blame of chucking them off bus and leaving them!

Chris Storey

What an astonishing waste of money.

Ken Johnston

A vote catcher that will simply be funded by the 23 to 60 age group. I would have agreed to free transport for school kids but not beyond.

Henry Campbell Gillan

If it works for youngsters as it does for over sixties, then it will further discourage car use. That can only be a good thing.

James Thomson

If the 16 per cent is accurate that would be just shy of £12 million a week that they would need to make back by putting our prices up.

Elizabeth Moffat

If there’s extra cash, fix the roads.

Marion Forrest

Disgusted at this idea. Youths of today have no manners or morals. City buses have been targeted for months. It’s intimidating for older travellers and can only get worse.