Ms Anne Graham:

I might add to that. We were monitoring to see what happened with the 20% fare reduction. While it is difficult to identify whether that drove additional passenger numbers, given everything else that was happening and that we were recovering from Covid, and whether passenger numbers would have been recovering anyway, there is no doubt the 20% reduction did result in increased passenger numbers but it is probably difficult to put an actual figure on that.

We have also done some research because there has certainly been a push for free fares across the public transport network. The research that has been done elsewhere has shown that while it may increase passenger numbers by a certain amount, what you find is that people are doing less walking and cycling as a result of free fares. They are just transferring from the more sustainable modes like walking and cycling - the active modes - to public transport. That is the kind of behaviour-----