We welcome the news that the £2 bus fare cap will be rolled-out across Strathclyde from Monday 7 September 2026. This is a massive win for our campaign which has long-fought for fairer fares.
But it will only address half of the problem. It will not improve services or create new routes. Instead, it will be another blank cheque to private bus companies, who could receive up to 98% of their full single fare from the Government for each journey made.
The only way to ensure that public money is actually being used to improve services, create new routes and integrate timetables and tickets with other transport modes – is by bringing our region’s bus network back into public control using the bus franchising powers in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.
This is what our transport authority – SPT – has now committed do. We need the Scottish Government to support SPT to make this happen and to speed up the bus franchising process by simplifying the legislation in the new ‘Better Buses Bill’.
Otherwise we could be waiting until 2031 to see real change on our streets.
