by Sarah Collings, Senior Research Fellow in Transport and Young People
Over two in five 16–24-year-olds use buses every week and two out of three young people in this age group do not have access to a car (Chatterjee et al., 2019)
Yet the experiences of young adults are less scrutinised in transport policy and research compared to older people and children.
In Summer 2022, we, at UWE Bristol, carried out in-depth interviews with young people aged 17 &18 years.
We wanted to understand the role that transport played as they navigated a pivotal moment: leaving compulsory education. At the heart of many of their experiences were public buses.
With the help of our friends at the Urban Transport Group, we published a blog to share four of their stories.
This includes Myra,from a small town eight miles from Nottingham who notes “If you want to get outside you’re gonna have to use a bus.”
Zala, from a car-less household in south Bristol spoke to us about how about the crucial role that buses have played in her pursuing her career ambitions in engineering, as well as accessing education: “Getting the bus [to secondary school]…that was the only way of getting there really.”
With ambitions to transform the bus network diminishing (Urban Transport Group, 2023), young people’s ‘bus stories’ highlight what could be at stake for young people if local bus services do not provide a suitable alternative to the car.
Inadequate public transport should not be a risk factor for young people’s prospects.
Read Myra and Zala’s stories along with two other young people in the full blog on the Urban Transport Group’s website.
About the research:
The ‘bus stories’ told in this blog were collected as part of the Transport to Thrive project by UWE Bristol in partnership with Sustrans.
Transport to Thrive aims to make the policy case for transport that better enables young people aged 16-24 to make journeys and reach opportunities.
Transport to Thrive is part of the Health Foundation’s Young People’s Future Health Inquiry. The Health Foundation is an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK.
Note: we have changed the names of the young people to protect their identity.
References:
Chatterjee, K., Clark, B., Nguyen, A., Wishart, R., Gallop, K., Smith, N., & Tipping, S. (2019). Access to transport and life opportunities. Department for Transport https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/4274794/access-to-transport-and-life-opportunities
Urban Transport Group 2023, Survive or thrive – Has Government watered down its ambition to truly transform bus services? https://www.urbantransportgroup.org/blog/2023/05/24/survive-or-thrive-has-government-watered-down-its-ambition-truly-transform-bus