London buses are slowing down. The latest peak-time average bus speed across the capital was just 8.3 miles per hour – roughly the speed of a horse and cart. This is down from more 9 miles per hour a decade ago, interrupted by a peak of over 12 miles per hour during the pandemic. As a result, bus ridership in the capital is on a slow decline.
Transport for London’s ‘London on the Move’ sets out a five-year plan to bring London buses back up to speed, with lessons for other city regions.
TfL’s three-pronged street strategy will increase bus speeds by using road powers
This is not through targeting bus services or operators. Rather, TfL is concentrating on road powers, devolved to the Mayor, to get bus speeds up. The action plan has three components.
First is TfL’s lane rental scheme. This is dynamic pricing for roadworks, implementing charges for carrying out work on the busiest roads at the busiest times to minimise disruption. Already in use on TfL-controlled routes, the future plan is to roll it out on roads that the boroughs look after. This is well targeted: boroughs are responsible for 70 per cent of the London roads most important to buses.
Second is ‘bus sense’ – greater coordination between TfL and London boroughs on roadworks applications, including sharing data and expertise. This level of collaboration is expected to cover all London boroughs by 2027.
Third is a technology upgrade for the more than 4,000 traffic signals that TfL operates. The new tech allows for optimisation for specific modes (such as buses) and captures data for evaluating signal changes. This full overhaul is expected by 2031.
In TfL’s most conservative estimates, these three changes would lead to a 13 per cent improvement in journey times by 2030. This would beat TfL’s 10 per cent target.
It’s a reminder that better buses in big cities require the stick alongside the carrot
Prioritising buses and modal shift are core components of TfL’s strategy. Big cities face the largest transport congestion costs, so focusing on public transport – the most efficient mode for getting people around, particularly in city centres – makes sense.
But it shows that improving buses in big cities needs a carrot-and-stick approach. So far, much has been made of the carrot. Better bus frequency and reliability have been successes of Manchester’s Bee Network, with the South Yorkshire People’s Network aiming for similar results in Sheffield.
However, Centre for Cities’ modelling shows the price of ignoring the stick. Even with improvements such as more frequent buses and multimodal ticketing, more than half of the residents who would be better connected in Sheffield as a result would still find it easier to drive (Figure 1). The same applies in Leeds, where similar plans for a ‘Weaver Network’ are taking shape.
Figure 1: Driving is still a better option for half of Sheffield’s residents who would be better connected under an integrated public transport network
In Birmingham, prioritising bus journeys alone could better connect 80,000 more residents to its city centre – more than any other individual intervention.
These measures can benefit private road users too. This is how TfL presents their strategy: by bringing bus ridership up and encouraging modal shift, the aim is to increase speeds for all traffic, particularly in outer London where freight routes are a key consideration.
With the same road powers, metro mayors should follow TfL’s lead to keep their buses moving
The good news: as part of the Devolution Bill, metro mayors in big cities will gain London’s road powers to take similar approaches. But if some measures are seen as politically unpalatable, they may be reluctant to use them to prioritise public transport. Manchester’s attempt to introduce a congestion charge 20 years ago may loom large in some minds.
London’s example offers a lesson. Even with the best integrated transport network in the country, the capital still needs measures to tip the balance in favour of public transport over private vehicles.
Other big cities are the next most congested places in the country. Though the ‘stick’ may be smaller and more centrally focused than in the capital, it will still be a key part of their future integrated transport systems. Even buses in the best version of the Bee Network will still get stuck in rush-hour traffic without interventions on Manchester’s roads.
What’s different today is that priority measures can be sold as a package alongside genuine improvements in public transport. Improving public transport options may sweeten the deal when it comes to restrictions on cars, including a compelling case that such moves would benefit remaining road users. Avoiding the question would be to dampen the economic benefits of future improvements to big city transport.