Like most under-22s, I love my Young Scot Card. Back in 2022 it felt like winning the lottery: free rides to school, free trips to visit friends. Then I started university and it only got better. A new city, a new social life, and then the same card opening doors (or, more accurately, bus doors) for free.
So imagine my confidence one night in first year. I’d been out, I was tired, and all I wanted was to get to bed. A bus pulled up, an N in front of the number, and I climbed aboard, Scot Card in hand. I tapped it against the reader. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing, just the driver shaking his head at me. Apparently, my free bus travel came with a curfew.
£3.50. The standard night fare, for a journey that would have cost me absolutely nothing before midnight.
The whole thing seems rather contradictory. Scotland has rightly championed free bus travel for young people, but apparently that principle only stretches so far into the evening. Night buses aren’t a luxury; they’re how people get home from late shifts, society socials, and nights out, when other services have stopped running. Young people don’t stop having places to be after dark, and charging them to get home risks pushing them off the bus and onto dark, empty streets— exactly where nobody should be at 2am.
I don’t think we’re asking for much. Just that ‘free bus travel for under-22’s’ means exactly that, whatever the time on the clock. If I can take a bus from Edinburgh to Aberdeen in the middle of the night for free, why can’t I get one from New Town to Marchmont?
Until someone answers that, my Scot Card remains my favourite possession. That is, right up until the sun goes down.
Illustration by Jianglin Jiang for The Student.
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Short Rant: Why isn’t the night bus free with a Young Scot Card?
Like most under-22s, I love my Young Scot Card. Back in 2022 it felt like winning the lottery: free rides to school, free trips to visit friends. Then I started university and it only got better. A new city, a new social life, and then the same card opening doors (or, more accurately, bus doors) for free.
So imagine my confidence one night in first year. I’d been out, I was tired, and all I wanted was to get to bed. A bus pulled up, an N in front of the number, and I climbed aboard, Scot Card in hand. I tapped it against the reader. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing, just the driver shaking his head at me. Apparently, my free bus travel came with a curfew.
£3.50. The standard night fare, for a journey that would have cost me absolutely nothing before midnight.
The whole thing seems rather contradictory. Scotland has rightly championed free bus travel for young people, but apparently that principle only stretches so far into the evening. Night buses aren’t a luxury; they’re how people get home from late shifts, society socials, and nights out, when other services have stopped running. Young people don’t stop having places to be after dark, and charging them to get home risks pushing them off the bus and onto dark, empty streets— exactly where nobody should be at 2am.
I don’t think we’re asking for much. Just that ‘free bus travel for under-22’s’ means exactly that, whatever the time on the clock. If I can take a bus from Edinburgh to Aberdeen in the middle of the night for free, why can’t I get one from New Town to Marchmont?
We’ve Preserved More than Just Mummies
Until someone answers that, my Scot Card remains my favourite possession. That is, right up until the sun goes down.
Illustration by Jianglin Jiang for The Student.
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