Julia's criticism of West traffic: "I will choose the car"

Every day Julija Daukantaite takes a train from Lödöse and leaves her three children at the school in Gothenburg and then pick them up again in the afternoon. Something that will change because Västtrafik plans to drop the accompanying discount for young autumn 2020. The discount means that up to three people under the age of 20 go free with a paying adult.

- Today I pay SEK 1460 for a monthly card, and with that, me and my three girls go to school every day back and forth, but if I had to buy a period card for each, it would cost about SEK 5000 a month, says she.

Julija Daukantaite says that she is lucky to have a car and a driver's license, otherwise it would be far too expensive to take the children to school every day.

- I do not really want to drive, it goes by train much faster and it is more convenient and better for the environment, but I will definitely start taking the car, it will be too expensive to take the train, she says.

Peter Hermansson (M), chairman of Västtrafik, tells us that a change is necessary because the discount did not work as intended.

- The idea was that young people could go for free with an adult with whom they have some kind of relationship, he says.

At present, it is not specified what relationship the accompanying youth must have with the adult, but anyone can in principle go with an adult who holds a ticket.

Peter Hermansson thinks that the idea behind the accompanying debate is good but that it is difficult to apply.

- We need to design a ticket that can be better adapted to the idea itself, because we see a need for such a ticket. But sometimes a thing that looks very easy to implement can be very difficult. We are currently working on a solution, but we do not know if it will be ready for autumn 2020, he says.

He goes on to say that it is testified that young people get on the bus without a ticket. When confronted with drivers and controllers, young people point to an adult they do not know and say to go with it and demand to go for free.

- It all puts drivers, ticket controllers and paying passengers in a very difficult seat. As it is right now we can just as easily let all young people go for free and unfortunately it is not sustainable. We want to devote our resources to developing public transport, ”says Peter Hermansson (M), chairman of Västtrafik.