Transport exclusion: you can’t get on if you can’t get anywhere…
The Ten Year Youth Strategy recognises that many young people are excluded from being able to access services and activities through the unavailability, poor quality. or excessive cost of transport. And transport has been a big barrier coming up in interviews with speakers at the Aiming High for Young People regional events across England.
Transport is also the focus of the UK Youth Parliament’s Fairs Fare campaign and is explored in a new research report from The National Youth Agency.
Accessing positive activities: Innovative solutions for young people’s bus travel (PDF) looks at four schemes designed to improve access to transport for young people:
- A 50p a journey bus and rail ’student rider’ ticket on the Isle of Wight
- A free minibus service in Suffolk
- A taxi-bus service in Surrey
and - A discount card scheme in West Sussex.
Yet schemes like these are still very limited.
What transport innovations are we missing? What are the small scale and big scale ideas needed to make sure poor access to transport doesn’t stall attempts to challenge social exclusion?
Rural Youth Network has conducted research in partnership with The NYA into ‘Positive Activities in a Rural Context’ and this briefing can be downloaded from our website at http://www.ruralyouth.com