“The real year of the bus will be when the Mayor’s term comes to an end” says Green Assembly Member Darren Johnson.
The New Bus for London in operation on the 38 route to Victoria, photograph courtesy of Tom Page.
The Mayor of London is today launching ‘The Year of the Bus’ at City Hall aiming to help Londoners ‘to re-connect with their bus network’.
Figures published by Transport for London this January show that between 2000/01 and 2012/13, the number of bus journey stages in London increased by 56.8 per cent, and passenger-kilometres grew by 70.5 per cent.
However, the rate of growth has levelled out in more recent years; the most recent year showed little change in passenger kilometres, increasing from 8,219 million in 2011/12 to 8,258 million in 2012/13, while there was a drop in bus journey stages, down from 2,344 million to 2,335 million.
The ‘Travel in London 6’ report accounts the levelling out of the rate of increase in bus usage to a number of factors, including a slowing of the rate of increase in bus service provision, rising fares, and service levels/service quality.
Darren commented, “Bus passengers have spent the past six years paying more for services that have become increasingly stretched. Mayor Boris Johnson has halted the expansion of the bus network in London and used most of the money from higher bus fares as a way of filling the gap left by Government cuts to TfL’s grant.”
“This is the Mayor who ended over a twelve year expansion in bus passenger numbers. 2016 will be the real year of the bus when his Mayoral term comes to an end and the TfL business plan starts to expand the bus network again.”