The party pointed to research by KPMG, external<\/a> estimating that bus passengers spend \u00a339.1bn annually in local businesses, and that over 2.2 million commuters rely on buses to get to work, generating \u00a372bn in collective income each year.<\/p>\nThe analysis suggested that every \u00a31 invested in bus services would yield an economic benefit ranging from \u00a34.55 to \u00a35.<\/p>\n
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said: “Young people are increasingly shut out of employment and training by the cost-of-living crisis, which often hits the youngest the hardest.”<\/p>\n
He added: “Green councillors elected in May will be using their influence to implement this scheme in their areas and we will be applying political pressure at a national level for a scheme recommended by the transport select committee last year to be made real.<\/p>\n
“Free bus travel for the young is part of our mission to make hope normal again.”<\/p>\n
The party is also promising to abolish the current time restrictions on the disabled person’s bus pass, making it valid 24-hours a day, and guaranteeing to keep free travel for older people with extended hours.<\/p>\n
Buses are the most commonly used form of public transport in England but the number of journeys has fallen over the last 10 years and has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. <\/p>\n
In the year to March 2025, there were 3.7 billion local bus journeys in England, down from more than 4 billion pre-Covid.<\/p>\n
Those aged 17 to 20 made the highest number of local bus trips per person.<\/p>\n
Last year MPs on the Commons Transport Committee also called for under-22s in England to get free bus passes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As well as helping young people access education, training and jobs, the Green Party said free bus travel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-375067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}