The Will to Improve Public Transport

Matthew Davidson speaks to Karen Watson in Scotland and Kimm Steenbergen in the Netherlands for the ‘100 Voices: Home and Away’ project.

Photo of an empty bus in the Netherlands. Photo by Pieter Benjamin Nijs on Unsplash

Public transport in the UK is often compared to Europe, with many feeling our systems here are substandard.

Home- Karen Watson, Scotland

 Karen Watson, a railway engineer said: “Transport could be better. I feel there is little to incentivise people to use public transport as an alternative. Cost is high, service is poor, especially to more rural areas.

“Increasing the number of local, smaller train stations would make a massive improvement to rail usage, as would increase park and ride facilities at larger stations.

“There is also an over-reliance on road freight. One train equals the equivalent of 76 lorries on the road. Reducing the number of lorries would have a significant impact on the environment.”

Away- Kimm Steenbergen, Netherlands

Kim Steenbergen, 21, who works in the travel industry in the Netherlands, said: “I think our transport is very good. It only costs 66 euros to travel around the whole city for a month. That gets you on the trams, buses and trains. I don't own a car. I have a bike or I use the train. Some of my friends do own cars but we are all still relatively young so it's only a few. If we wanted to go anywhere together we would just use public transport as Utrecht is a city that is not friendly towards cars and it is set up to encourage people to use the transport available. The cities in the Netherlands are designed for people on bikes not cars.”