Campaign groups, including Fare Free London, have welcomed the House of Commons Transport Committee’s proposal for free bus travel for under-22s – and called on the committee, and the government, to consider making all public transport free for all.
The call to extend zero-fares transport further is supported by Fare Free London, Fare Free Yorkshire and Get Glasgow Moving, as well as the Greener Jobs Alliance, Tipping Point UK campaign, Doctors in Unite, Socialist Health Association and the Leeds, Wakefield and York branch of Unite Community.
It came in response to a report from the House of Commons Transport Committee that acknowledged the damage done by high bus fares, and poor services, to the lives of millions of young people.
“The undersigned organisations welcome the House of Commons Transport Committee’s call for a pilot scheme providing free all-day bus travel to under-22s – and we call for a more wide-ranging study on the potential for universal free travel on all types of public transport.
The committee states that access to free travel would help to remove “barriers to education, training and employment for the next generation”, but it is not only the young who experience these barriers. The burden borne by millions of households due the high fares as well as to the deterioration of bus services over the past decade is well documented.
High fares and poor public transport services exacerbate social inequality, and obstruct progress away from car-centred transport systems – and not only on buses. Trains, including the underground, add to the problem.
With regard to buses, the Transport Committee is calling for a change in the way that funding is provided. We believe that that change should be applied to public transport as a whole.
We call for the Committee and the government to consider the potential of universal free public transport, which has been successfully introduced in a range of European cities, including the capitals of Luxembourg, Estonia and Serbia, and more than 130 cities in Brazil.
Fare Free London, Fare Free Yorkshire, Get Glasgow Moving, Greener Jobs Alliance, Tipping Point UK, Unite Community, Leeds, Wakefield and York branch”
Fare Free London and allied organisations will discuss the next steps of the campaign for free public transport at our Annual Meeting on Saturday 27 September 2025, 10.0am, at the Waterloo Action Centre, Baylis Road, London SE1 7AA
The BBC has interviewed people affected by the cost of public transport in this response to the proposals
MyLondon reports that our call is backed by Caroline Russell, who leads the Green Party group on the London Assembly
Published: 18th August 2025
