Pinpointing the decline to a particular cause is difficult but increasing bus fares and lower levels of public financial support for commercially non-viable but socially important bus routes have been suggested as part of the explanation.

Bus journeys declined 1.9% across England between April 2017 and March 2018, with a 0.7% decrease in London and 3.2% outside of London. Since 2008/ bus journeys have decreased by 15.5% in metropolitan areas outside of London. Further, the satisfaction with punctuality and journey time is also decreasing for bus services.

CIHT guidelines on Buses in Urban Developments.

Research by the Productivity Insights Network shows that UK cities do not follow the economic law of agglomeration effects and attributes this to poor public transport in many English cities London excluded. Improving the bus-service and increasing the number of passenger journeys could benefit the productivity of cities claims the Productivity Insights Network. Yesterday (29/01/2019), the Transport Committee enquired about how bus services are currently operated in the UK. There is currently no national strategy for bus transport in the UK. 

At CIHT’s Annual Conference on the 7^th March which this year is focussed on productivity, you can hear about the guidelines CIHT Better Planning for Better Transport & Places which focus on how planning can help the UK’s productivity problems while remaining sustainable and addressing social inequity.

Book your place at the Annual Conference here. 

Agglomeration effects

This term describes the relationship between a city's size and the GDP/Per capita in that city. This law has been shown to be largely valid for a number of countries including the US, Germany, France and the Netherlands. These effects arise due to businesses and people being closer to each other. Transport has a vital part to play in how close business and people effectively are to each other.