Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:34 pm on 8 February 2023.
Well, there's no doubt that, if we had lower prices, we'd have higher use. There are schemes right across the world, including free bus use in Normandy and elsewhere, and free bus schemes in Wales, in Cardiff and Swansea and Newport, for short periods, which have shown an uptake in usage. So, we know that, when fares drop, people are more likely to use it. There's no shortage of opportunities and ideas to increase usage and to reduce fares, and incentivise people to use public transport. The challenge always is the resource. So, I'm not sure how the Conservatives plan to fund that initiative that they had in their manifesto, but there are no easy options that I'm aware of to do just that.
We do have an offer on buses where people aged between 16 and 21 have a third off an adult bus ticket, and we've been doing a lot of work, as part of our commitment to a fairer fares regime, to model what we could achieve if we had much lower bus fares. And the figures are all very encouraging; the resource is the challenge.