Bus services are “too dear and too unreliable” for the Scots most dependent on them to get around, campaigners have warned.
The Poverty Alliance is now urging the SNP Government to support more councils to bring buses back under local control.
MSPs will next week debate a public petition which calls for the re-regulation of buses to be made a priority after years of fare hikes and routes being axed.
Peter Kelly, Poverty Alliance chief executive, said: “People on low incomes tell us buses are too dear, too unreliable, and don’t meet their needs.”
Edinburgh is the only city in Scotland to retain public ownership of its local bus fleet, which is regularly hailed as the country’s best.
Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) announced earlier this year it would pursue a similar model across Greater Glasgow.
The current deregulated network could be replaced with a franchise system like the ones in London and Manchester.
This means fares, routes and ticketing would be controlled by a local public body such as Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT).
But SPT has said it could take seven years to set up and would need at least £45m in extra funding every year.
Kelly and other campaigners believe this is too long to wait and called for the Scottish Government to help speed up the process.
Local authorities were handed powers over bus franchising in 2019 but critics say few cash-strapped councils can afford to use them.
“For people in poverty, expensive and inaccessible buses restrict their freedom, lessen their opportunities, and badly impact their health and well-being,” Kelly said.
“High fares and poor services hit them hardest, because they rely more on the bus. The bus industry in Scotland is supported by all of us. It receives significant public subsidies, but in most areas we still have no say over routes, timetables, service frequency, ticketing, or fares.
“It’s wrong that – five years after the Transport Act was passed – we are still waiting for the change people need. Other areas of the UK are moving ahead of us,
“The Government can act now to support public control and public ownership, and invest in a world-class bus network that gives us all greater freedom – especially people in poverty.”
Bus services outside of London were privatised by Margaret Thatcher’s Tory Government in 1986. Passenger numbers have plummeted as a result.
A Transport Scotland spokesman said “We have delivered all the bus powers within the Transport (Scotland) Act to enable local authorities to consider all the powers available to them – including partnership working, franchising and local authority run services which sit alongside their ability to subsidise services.
“The bus provisions in the 2019 Act empower local transport authorities with the flexible tools they need to respond to their own transport challenges.
“We encourage all local transport authorities to consider the full range of tools available to them under the 2019 Act, to ensure that everyone has accessible public transport regardless of where they are in Scotland.”
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