Major shifts in London bus use says NTS

Commuting and leisure trip rates decline as men make many fewer trips

The new data published recently by the Department for Transport (DfT) from its National Travel Survey†, enables us to gain an insight into the recent major changes in who amongst Londoners uses the bus, and the reasons for their trips. The update combined data from the last six months of the 2022 survey with the first six of 2023. The limited number of tables predates publication of the full 2023 data later in the year.

The figures point to a continuing recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, with overall trip rates increasing between the 2022 survey and these interim results. The London public as a whole made an estimated 763 trips per person per year (tpppy) by all modes in 2022/23, up by 0.9% compared with 2022. However, the figure remained 6.6% below the 816.5 trips recorded in the 2019 survey.

Shopping trips, for long the backbone of travel demand, increased across the whole of England, up 2.7% to 165.4 tpppy, compared with 2022’s figure of 151.1. Again, however, this was substantially down on pre-pandemic levels, when 180.6 tpppy were recorded. That’s a shortfall of 15.4%. Separate figures for London will be available when the full 2023 survey is published later this year.

Looking specifically at the bus market in the capital, the overall trip rate rose by just over nine per cent, with a rate of 99.4 tpppy compared with 90.9 in 2022. The last pre-Covid figure recorded in 2019 was 102.1, leaving a shortfall of just 2.7%.

Analysis of responses on people’s reasons for making their journey, trip rates for all purposes except education grew significantly between 2022 and the latest data. When comparing the 2022/23 trip rates with those of 2019 and 2010 (see Figure 1), we see a sharp fall in all categories except education, ranging from 30.3% for commuting to 57.9% for business travel (albeit from a very low base – even in 2019, the rate was only 0.812 tpppy).

Translating those trip rates into estimated passenger numbers, we see from Figure 2 that there is a more even split in percentage terms between commuting/business (21.9%), shopping (20.3%) and leisure (17.8%) than in previous years. Education now accounts for almost 27% of bus trips in the capital. In the days before online retail took off, shopping tended to predominate, accounting for over 25% of trips in the first decade of the century, whilst in the run-up to Covid, commuting by bus became more important, accounting for up to 28% of trips.

Figure 1: Changes in London Bus Trip Rates by Journey Purpose

Figure 2: Shifts in the Market Share of London Bus Trips by Journey Purpose

There have been some major shifts in the demographic profile of bus users, according to the survey. The overall recovery in 2022/23 was not universal: there were continuing falls in trip rates amongst the three youngest age groups, and amongst the over 70s. The highest year-on-year growth came from those in their forties, up 42.5%.

Comparing trip rates with the last pre-pandemic year, two age-group, the under 17s amd those between 17 and 20, actually show improvements of 3.4% and 9.1% respectively, but the others show sharp falls: this is as high as 36% amongst people in their fifties, and 20.4% amongst those between 21 and 29.

There are some significant differences in behaviour between men and women, with the former showing much more significant falls in bus use since 2019 across virtually all age groups. Boys under 17 were the only male age cohort to show an increased trip rate, whilst there was only a small fall for men in their forties. Women between 17 and 20 and 30 and 39 actually made more trips than in 2019, with the gap widening with age, so women in their sixties are making two-thirds fewer trips since the pandemic.

As with the rest of the country, there was a significant loss of trips amongst older people, though in London this was much more pronounced amongst the men (down 25.6% for the over 60s and 24% for the over 70s) compared with women, down 9.3% and 6.5% respectively in those two age groups.

Bus Trip Rates in London by Age and Gender (trips per person per year)

† - The NTS is a household survey of personal travel, from data collected via interviews and a seven-day travel diary, which enables analysis of patterns and trends. The statistics for the year ending June 2023 include data from the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023. In the year ending June 2023, the survey captured responses from 10,351 individuals covering 167,916 trips. The National Travel Survey mid-year estimates are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-survey-mid-year-estimates-year-ending-june-2023.