Scotland Lifts Bus Fund to £55 Million Ahead of New Law

Scotland’s Bus Infrastructure Fund will rise to £55 million in capital funding for 2026-27, up from £20 million the year before, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport Stephen Flynn confirmed on 26 August 2026. The money targets bus priority measures, passenger facilities and related works that local authorities and voluntary partnerships judge will cut delays and lift reliability.

The announcement landed the same day Flynn convened the Better Buses Legislation Stakeholder Roundtable, fulfilling a first-100-days pledge of the new Scottish Government. Operators, local transport authorities and passenger groups sat down to shape proposals that could alter how services are planned and paid for.

The £55 Million Bus Infrastructure Fund Arrives

Transport Scotland states the fund will be split £20 million through Tier 1 and £35 million through Tier 2. Tier 1 flows via the General Capital Grant to every local authority. Tier 2 goes as grants to voluntary Bus Partnerships. Both streams are already moving into the system for the coming financial year.

Flynn framed the cash as the first step toward more affordable journeys and better coverage in every community. Paul White, Director for CPT Scotland, welcomed the 2026-27 round, saying priority infrastructure is vital if buses are to become a more attractive choice.

• £55 million total capital for 2026-27
• £20 million Tier 1 via General Capital Grant
• £35 million Tier 2 for Bus Partnerships
• Increase from £20 million total in 2025-26

The jump more than doubles the previous year’s total and shifts the balance toward partnership-led corridor work. Tier 2 alone now exceeds the entire 2025-26 pot, giving voluntary Bus Partnerships a larger construction budget than local authorities held between them a year earlier.

The £55 million investment confirmed by Transport Scotland sits inside a wider push to raise bus use and cut private car trips.

Tier 1 Weights Money Toward Transport Poverty

Tier 1 uses a formula agreed with COSLA that steers more cash to areas with higher transport poverty. That metric covers places where options are limited, unreliable, unaffordable, inaccessible or unsafe. Rural authorities and deprived urban pockets therefore receive larger shares than dense city centres that already enjoy denser networks.

In the 2025-26 round the same method produced a £10 million Tier 1 pot with a £50,000 floor. Highland took £1.155 million, Fife £858,000 and Dumfries & Galloway £832,000, while Glasgow City, Edinburgh and Dundee each received the £50,000 minimum. The 2026-27 Tier 1 pot doubles to £20 million on the same logic.

If the same shares hold after the pot doubles, Highland-scale awards would approach £2.3 million while the city floor would rise only to £100,000. That arithmetic keeps the rural tilt intact even as absolute sums grow.

The tilt means island and rural councils start with more headroom for basic stops and shelters, while city partnerships lean on the larger Tier 2 pot for corridor schemes. Sparse networks gain stops and kerbs first; dense networks chase signal priority and lane continuity.

What Projects Local Authorities Can Build

The fund pays only for capital infrastructure. Eligible works include bus lanes, bus gates, priority signals, junction changes that speed buses without adding general traffic capacity, real-time information displays, shelters, accessible kerbs and ramps, layby removals that stop buses rejoining traffic, interchange points and staffing costs tied to design and construction.

• Bus lanes and bus gates that keep services clear of congestion
• Priority traffic signals and urban traffic control upgrades
• Shelters, raised kerbs, audio-visual information and accessible access
• Interchange hubs linking bus with rail, ferry or active travel
• Design and business-case staff time for those projects

Vehicles, depots, operator offices, printed maps, charging points and developer-required mitigation are all excluded. The list is set out on the official page of eligible bus lanes shelters and priority signals.

The boundary matters. Capital can clear a junction or raise a kerb, yet it cannot buy the bus that uses them or the depot that keeps the bus on the road. Partnerships must still fund rolling stock and day-to-day running costs from other budgets.

Earlier Tier 2 awards already funded design work on Glasgow’s Pollokshaws Road corridor, AI signal priority pilots, Hope Street interchange upgrades and Dundee arterial sustainable transport corridors. The bigger 2026-27 pot is expected to move more of those schemes into construction.

Bus Journeys Still Trail Pre-Pandemic Levels

The cash arrives against a long slide in bus use that the pandemic only deepened. Scottish Transport Statistics show 334 million bus journeys in 2024-25, a 2 percent rise on the previous year yet still 7.5 percent below the 361 million recorded in 2019-20. Over half those trips (55 percent) used the National Concessionary Travel scheme.

Vehicle kilometres rose 5 percent in the latest year, so operators are running more miles for fewer extra passengers. Bus still accounts for 73 percent of all public transport trips, far ahead of rail. Car traffic, meanwhile, has climbed back close to pre-pandemic volumes. The reliability gap that priority lanes are meant to close remains the clearest brake on recovery.

The concessionary share underlines another pressure. More than half of recorded trips already travel at no fare to the passenger, so growth among fare-paying riders has further to climb if total journeys are to close the gap with 2019-20.

That pattern sits inside Scotland’s wider green energy transition, where modal shift from cars is an explicit climate goal yet still incomplete on the ground.

Better Buses Roundtable Opens the Legislation Door

Flynn used the funding announcement to open the stakeholder roundtable that begins work on Better Buses legislation. The June 2026 parliamentary motion already backed a phased £2 fare cap, starting in the Highlands and Islands and moving next into Glasgow, Ayrshire and surrounding councils, plus faster use of franchising powers in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.

Campaigners have pressed for simpler franchising rules and public control of farebox revenue so that any surplus stays inside the network rather than private operators. Some Glasgow groups report earlier meeting requests were declined on diary grounds. The roundtable now puts operators, authorities and passenger representatives in the same room to test what the bill should contain.

1. 2019: Transport (Scotland) Act creates franchising powers
2. June 2026: parliamentary motion backs phased £2 fare cap and faster franchising
3. 26 August 2026: funding rise announced and stakeholder roundtable opens

The sequence ties capital spend to rule changes. Lanes and signals can cut delay now; the bill is meant to lock in who sets fares and who keeps the revenue once those assets are built.

The parallel with the public ownership model already used for water is already part of the political argument: whether buses should follow the same path or stay mixed.

Operators Welcome Priority Lanes While Skeptics Question Timing

CPT welcomes the launch of the 2026/27 round of the Scottish Government’s Bus Infrastructure Fund. Investing in measures that help buses move more quickly and reliably is vital if we are to make bus travel an even more attractive choice for people across Scotland. Bus priority and other targeted infrastructure improvements can reduce delays, improve journey times and give passengers greater confidence that their bus will get them where they need to be, when they need to be there.

Paul White, Director for CPT Scotland, Transport Scotland statement

On X the official Transport Scotland post drew dozens of replies that mixed support with sharp doubt. Several users linked the new bus cash to earlier expansion of cycle lanes and 20 mph zones that, in their view, slowed general traffic and therefore buses. Others asked why Scottish manufacturing, notably Alexander Dennis, was not given stronger preference when fleets are renewed. The fiscal cost of successive infrastructure pots also drew fire from accounts that track SNP spending.

Those reactions do not change the numbers, but they flag the political friction the legislation will meet: any new priority lane that removes general capacity will be measured against the same reliability clock the fund is meant to fix.

Priority Measures Target the Reliability Brake

Passenger recovery has stalled even while operators add miles. Journeys rose only 2 percent in the latest year, against a 5 percent rise in vehicle kilometres, and the total still sits 27 million trips short of 2019-20. Car traffic has already returned close to its earlier level, so the road space buses share is once again congested.

Priority lanes, gates and signal upgrades attack that mismatch directly. They aim to turn extra scheduled miles into shorter, more predictable journey times rather than into buses stuck in the same queues as cars. Shelters, raised kerbs and real-time displays address the waiting experience that often decides whether a would-be passenger walks to a stop at all.

The fund cannot rewrite timetables or cut fares on its own. Those levers sit with the legislation track opened at the roundtable, including the phased £2 cap and any franchising reforms that follow. Infrastructure and rules are meant to move together: faster running times from the capital pot, clearer prices and network control from the bill.

• 334 million journeys in 2024-25 versus 361 million in 2019-20
• 5 percent more vehicle kilometres, only 2 percent more passengers
• 55 percent of trips already on concessionary travel
• 73 percent of public transport trips still made by bus

Closing the 7.5 percent passenger gap therefore depends on whether new priority schemes convert existing service miles into reliable arrivals that fare-paying riders will use again.

How the Two Tiers Divide the Work

Tier 1 and Tier 2 are built for different problems. The General Capital Grant route spreads a doubled £20 million pot across every local authority on the COSLA transport-poverty formula, so Highland, Fife and Dumfries & Galloway keep the largest claims on basic stops, shelters and accessible kerbs. Cities that already hold dense networks stay near the floor and look elsewhere for big corridor money.

Tier 2 channels £35 million straight to voluntary Bus Partnerships. That is where multi-authority schemes such as Pollokshaws Road, Hope Street and the Dundee arterials were designed, and where construction is now expected to accelerate. Partnerships can bundle signal upgrades, lane continuous runs and interchange points that cross council lines, work a single authority grant would struggle to co-ordinate.

The split also explains the exclusion list. Because neither tier buys vehicles or depots, fleet decisions remain with operators and any future franchise authority. Capital money hardens the road and the stop; service levels and farebox rules stay on the legislative path Flynn opened the same day.

Taken together, the two tiers replace the earlier Bus Partnership Fund and Community Bus Fund with a single capital frame aligned to the National Transport Strategy aims of higher patronage, lower car use and progress on child poverty, growth and net zero.

Funding Flows Through Grants This Year

Local authorities will receive their Tier 1 shares inside the General Capital Grant settlement. Voluntary Bus Partnerships will receive Tier 2 awards as direct grants once project lists are agreed. Both routes are already in motion for 2026-27 spend.

The fund replaces the earlier Bus Partnership Fund and Community Bus Fund. Its stated aims match the National Transport Strategy: higher patronage, lower car use, safer and more accessible journeys, and progress on child poverty, economic growth and net zero. Delivery will be judged by whether the new lanes, signals and shelters actually move the 334 million journey figure closer to the pre-pandemic mark and whether the legislation that follows can lock in the affordability and control changes Flynn has promised.

The first concrete test arrives when the 2026-27 project lists are published and the first priority schemes reach the ground.