Are rural transport costs 'Fare Enough'?

Public transport in rural areas is often a big problem – poor timetabling, limited choice of routes, cost and indeed whether any public transport exists at all. A young person living rurally may be totally dependent on access to their own car, or have to depend on friends and relatives to help get about. Ultimately, their only choice may be to move from where they live so that they can access education or employment.

The cost of travel is also a big factor and can often be much more expensive than urban fares, where young people can often choose between different forms of public transport for the same journey.

Scottish Rural Action aims to be a powerful voice for the people of rural Scotland and is keen to highlight the impact of the cost of transport on young people – in their work, studies and social life. In November 2017 they launched the '#FareEnough?' campaign. The campaign aims to make public travel free for young people living rurally – such as with a travel pass similar to what Modern Apprentices in Scotland currently receive.

They currently have a live online survey (details below) for young people from rural areas to complete to tell them about their travel experiences. Initial results have indicated that the cost of public transport prevented a significant number of rural young people from accessing education (29%) and employment (47%), in some cases causing them to move away from their rural home.

One of the key issues that the survey highlighted is that many young scots do not earn enough to pay for the cost of travel to and from work, with some of the responses stating that they;

‘Can’t access jobs as salary would barely cover travel costs’

‘Couldn’t justify spending half my wages to get to and from work’

32% of respondents stated that they would be willing to travel more than 50 miles per day for education or employment if public transport was free and 24% would be willing to travel 30-40 miles.

The campaign to date has concluded that the cost of travel is excluding young adults living rurally from education and employment, ultimately affecting quality of life and impacting on rural communities as a whole. Scottish Rural Action would like to see free travel for young people living rurally and will continue to campaign for this to happen.

The '#FareEnough?' survey can be completed here, or follow the campaign on Scottish Rural Actions website.