A FREE bus trial designed to encourage young people on to public transport is likely to be scrapped after uptake slumped much lower than expected.

A senior councillor will this week be asked to cancel a programme giving free weekend travel to people aged 18 and under.

Cllr Ian Gillies, the executive member for transport at City of York Council, is expected cancel the free provision after a little over a quarter of the money set aside was actually used.

The trial was originally launched for January and February, with £100,000 earmarked to fund it, but a report shows that organisers estimate just £28,000 will have been spent by the end of the trial.

In the first weekend of January, bus use by young people was actually less than half what it had been in the same weekend last year. Although floods clean-up and bad weather would have had an impact, the data for the rest of the month is not much more encouraging.

The report by council sustainable transport manager Andrew Bradley says: "The passenger numbers in the second and third weekends of January, however, suggest that the free travel offer did not increase the number of children and young people travelling by bus."

Now officials are asking Cllr Gillies to scrap the trial, and instead launch a survey to find out why young people use buses, and whether the free trial encouraged them to make journeys they would not otherwise have made, or encouraged them to switch from other modes of transport. The survey will cost £2,000. An alternative option is to run another six weekends of free travel - in which case the total cost would be up to £50,000.

The scheme was originally planned after strong messages from the city's Youth Council that more needed to be done to make bus services more attractive, accessible and affordable for young people across the city.

York, like North Yorkshire and the East Riding has no concessionary scheme to give young people cheaper bus travel. When he signed off the nine weekend long trial scheme in Cllr Gillies said they hoped the trial would introduce young people to the more sustainable form of transport, which they would stick with once the free period was over.