getting in touch<\/a> with questions on the issues that are important to you ahead of the Scottish Parliament election. Our team of experts are providing the answers.<\/p>\nWhat will the government do to tackle the problems surrounding bus travel in major cities? Max McGibbon, Glasgow<\/p>\n
David Henderson, BBC Scotland News correspondent, says: <\/p>\n
Three quarters of all public transport journeys made in Scotland are by bus yet buses get a fraction of the political attention and capital investment that rail receives.<\/p>\n
But at this election, bus travel is high on the agenda because of widespread concern about the rising price of tickets, fragmented bus networks, and reduced services.<\/p>\n
Some parties blame the deregulated bus network – brought in by Margaret Thatcher in the ’80s.<\/p>\n
They pledge to turn that around, through a franchising system, as used in London or Manchester.<\/p>\n
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Image source, SNS<\/p>\n
Labour, the SNP and Lib Dems all promise this type of change, to help under-served areas.<\/p>\n
Both the SNP and Scottish Greens promise a \u00a32 nationwide bus fare cap, to help passengers with the cost of living.<\/p>\n
The Greens are committed to free bus travel for all. They also want a publicly-owned bus network, a bit like Lothian buses – the UK’s largest municipal service.<\/p>\n
The Tories don’t propose franchising or fare caps – but pledge extra funds for councils, to keep bus routes open and restore services where they’ve been lost.<\/p>\n
Reform and the Greens pledge to back and invest in bus corridors in Scotland’s major cities – which would give buses priority over other vehicles.<\/p>\n
Integrated ticketing – to allow easier travel across bus, train, tram and subway – also features in the Conservative, Green, Labour and Lib Dem manifestoes.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s clear there’s a growing mood for change to this key form of transport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What are the parties’ plans for improving bus travel?published at 13:50 BST 23 April 13:50 BST 23 April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-547715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547715","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=547715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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What are the parties’ plans for improving bus travel?published at 13:50 BST 23 April<\/p>\n