Earlier this year the London Assembly Transport Committee decided to investigate both the current state of and future prospects for London’s bus network. Their investigation process involved two public meetings at City Hall, an online survey inviting bus passengers to share their views, submissions from interested parties and some specific investigations by Committee members into known problem areas. The Transport Committee issued their report on Monday 28 October 2013. It sets out a number of recommendations for the Mayor and TfL to consider and to respond to.
There’s been a bit of a gap since London Reconnections last looked at London Buses, so this seems an opportune moment to look at the transport mode that actually carries the most people in London on a daily basis. In this series of articles we will look at some of the recent history for London’s bus network, the concerns raised during the investigation process and TfL’s immediate response. We’ll also cover the recommendations the Transport Committee have set out for the Mayor and TfL to consider.
Where have we come from?
London’s bus services have a long history, with many developments and changes over the years. The bus network and its operation have always been influenced by external parties such as the Metropolitan Police and in more recent times by politicians and lobby groups. You could spend many column inches discussing whether these influences have been good or bad for the bus passenger but ultimately that is not the purpose of this article. It is, however, worth taking the time to look at the last 10-12 years of Mayoral control of London’s buses via Transport for London’s management of the network.
It is worth stating that London’s bus services are unique in mainland Britain in being subject to public control and for being fully contracted. London escaped the policy of bus deregulation which Nicholas Ridley, then Secretary of State for Transport, imposed on England, Scotland and Wales via the 1985 Transport Act. Outside London private bus companies decide what services they wish to operate and are free to compete with each other. Local authorities are left to decide if they wish to fund socially necessary services which the market does not provide. They also fund concessionary fares for older people and the disabled in accordance with the requirements of the applicable National Concessionary Travel Scheme. In London the Boroughs fund the Freedom Pass scheme. Other concessions such as Veterans Passes or free child fares, provided under Mayoral direction, are typically funded from TfL’s budget.
In London TfL are responsible for specifying the bus network with each route being specified in terms of frequency, hours of operation and vehicle type. TfL tenders the operation of its entire network and private operators run the services. The former LT Buses operation was privatised in the 1990s hence all operators are in the private sector. The short lived publicly owned “operator of last resort” East Thames Buses, established to operate services previously run by Harris Bus, was sold to London General in October 2009 during Boris Johnson’s first term as Mayor.
A well-known success
It is widely acknowledged that London’s bus network is a success story given many years of network development, solid and sustained levels of patronage growth, good all round service levels and affordable fares with convenient ticketing arrangements (primarily the Oyster Card). Many local authorities outside London look on enviously at London’s arrangements and despair of their own lack of control.
With the election of the first Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, in 2000 there was a deliberate policy decision to boost the bus network in the short term to provide additional capacity and create new journey opportunities. The wider policy context was recognition that capacity on the Underground and Rail networks could not be increased quickly given the need for significant infrastructure upgrades and procurement of new trains. It was also seen as a way to provide capacity in advance of and alongside the introduction of the Congestion Charging Zone.
TfL also introduced more accessible buses on the network and changed the contracting regime to drive up service quality and performance levels. The Mayor also froze bus fares for several years in his term, although fares did rise considerably in his second term from 2004-2008.
Some highlights on patronage levels, the annual subsidy cost and bus fares during Mayor Livingstone’s tenure are shown in the table below.
Taken from the TfL business plans and TfL response to Parliamentary Question
If the bus network had helped contribute to the success of Livingstone’s first term, some changes to routes in his second term were to prove a factor in his 2008 electoral defeat. These were the phased withdrawal of Routemaster buses and replacement with one person operated vehicles. On the very busiest routes articulated single decker buses, the so called “bendy buses,” were introduced with open boarding, cashless operations. These changes proved to be controversial and formed part of a tough election campaign in which the Conservative candidate for Mayor, Boris Johnson, pledged to remove the bendy buses and restore a “new Routemaster” vehicle with open rear platform to London’s streets. In May 2008 Boris Johnson was duly elected with these commitments as part of his manifesto. It is not our intention to explore the rights or wrongs of these choices here – it is perhaps fair to say that the internet and media have hardly been silent on both topics!
Meet the new boss…
In many respects Mayor Johnson continued his predecessor’s policies, although there was perhaps less coherence in the transport policy framework – there were commitments to remove part of the congestion charge zone in West London, to improve traffic flow for motorists and to reduce TfL’s expenditure. Apart from removing bendy buses and creating what became the “New Bus for London” (NBfL) there were few headline bus policies. The most overt was a pledge to create orbital express bus routes but this foundered after a trial of “better orbital bus services” with route X26 which runs from West Croydon to Heathrow Airport via Sutton and Kingston. While the X26 trial of improved frequencies generated considerable extra patronage, this was insufficient to offset the considerable extra costs and the scheme did not pass TfL’s business case criteria. While the improved service on the X26 has been retained no further creation of express services has happened. This is because such routes are likely to require considerable levels of subsidy which cannot be afforded. The clamour for such routes from passengers and politicians, however, has not abated.
The Subsidy falls
Mayor Johnson’s tenure has seen a considerable reduction in the bus subsidy – the money that “tops up” that taken from direct fares in order that the necessary bus services can be delivered. It has also seen a policy of annual above inflation fare increases, but also continued growth in patronage on the bus network. The scale of service expansion has slowed considerably although services in some areas of London have continued to see some improvements. The other major area of development has been a progressive increase in the number of hybrid buses which have lower emissions thus helping the effort to improve air quality. The original intention was that all buses purchased after 2012 would be hybrids but this commitment was quietly dropped as the cost of hybrid buses did not fall as quickly as expected. The policy is now split between buying the New Bus for London, hybrids and euro6 specification buses. In addition, some of the older euro3 spec buses are being upgraded to euro5 standard to further improve the environmental performance of the bus fleet.
Some highlights on patronage levels, the annual subsidy cost and bus fares during Mayor Johnson’s terms are shown in the table below. We will know soon what the numbers are for 2013/14.
Taken from the TfL business plan and TfL response to Parliamentary Question.
In order to achieve the reduction in bus subsidy TfL have had to balance fares revenue against the cost of running the network. The huge increase in subsidy in Ken Livingstone’s era was driven by several factors – capping fares levels, boosting service levels, increasing bus staff pay to improve recruitment and retention, buying accessible buses and expanding the network. There were also extra contract costs following the introduction of Quality Incentive Contracts which incentivised operators to provide good service performance in return for bonus payments. What was clear was that initially operators earned good levels of bonuses as performance targets were relatively easy to meet and their bids included extra resource to deliver the service quality.
In the Boris Johnson era TfL have tightened performance levels to make them more “stretching” and have negotiated down the numbers of buses needed to deliver the contracted performance level. This has reduced contract costs. The competitive element of the tendering process has also been used to lower contract costs while the option for 2 year extensions (based on previous good performance) has also seen some service improvements squeezed out of operators in return for the longer contract term. The less obvious element has been the removal of any large scale service improvements and a progressive trimming of peak service levels where this has not been readily noticeable. This means several trunk services in the central area have seen peak frequencies reduced in order to save money which has funded increases to suburban services in the Outer Boroughs. Some of the early conversions from bendy bus operation to double deckers saw very generous numbers of buses provided and this over provision has been pulled back once patronage levels became clearer post conversion. The few areas of more marked bus service improvement, for example at Stratford City / Olympic Park or Chiswick Business Park, have been funded by Section 106 payments from developers. TfL itself has not been able to fund these changes.
Beginning to look forward
All of this recent history will obviously play a part in what comes next – something we will begin to look at in the next article. It should also be remembered that all these bus policies took place against an important backdrop, one that remains largely true still today – growth in London’s population and relatively buoyant economic performance within the capital which has supported the continued growth in bus usage. This has meant that bus services are becoming busier, leading to overcrowding and a risk of longer wait times as full buses run past stops. London’s population is forecast to see continued growth thus increasing further the risk that the bus network fails to keep pace with demand, something that brings with it a potential for the unravelling of many years of positive performance.
Another relevant statistic to drawn upon is the relationship between population growth and use of each transport mode. The Travel in London report produced by TfL shows the highest ratio of trip generation to population growth is for buses. This means as London’s population expands, buses come under the most strain.
Travel in London report 2012
Ultimately, it is this overall background of rising demand and pressure to reduce costs that prompted the London Assembly Transport Committee to return to the subject of bus services and launch their investigation – and is to their report that we will turn in part 2.
Update on London streets with high pollution levels:
http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/some-london-streets-have-already-hit-their-pollution-limits-entire-year-618
Slightly off-topic but…
I find the names of bus stops confusing. Although there is no uniform system usually a stop is named after a nearby side street or turning. The name does not refer to the street you are on. So for example travelling towards London on the N9 at Henlys Corner the next stop is called Great West Road even though that is not the exit taken from the roundabout.
@Savoy Circus – I guess that TfL still has a whole department devoted to naming of bus stops and their locations.
In former times, it was easy – they were often named by the nearby landmark, usually a pub, e.g. “South Croydon – Swan & Sugar Loaf”, “The Swan” Stockwell and so on, as well as nearby churches but pubs fell out of favour with the LT/TfL authorities for some reason and so names of side roads started to be used that were unfamiliar to generations long before such pubs (or churches) might have disappeared or been renamed and even if they remain.
Worse, destination blinds on buses have generally been reduced to a pathetic shadow of the information of what used to be contained on them, so one gets simply e.g. “West Norwood” without knowing which end of West Norwood the bus might terminate. Most intermediate (‘via’) places are completely omitted. Just look at the older buses in this LR display to get an idea of how it still ought to be:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/pictures-buses-lots-lots-buses/
To take your particular point that there is no indication of the street you are on at stops, bear in mind that some roads are extraordinarily long, Edgware Road being an example, so that is far better to announce the immediate locality the bus is approaching, rather than repeating “Edgware Road” every time and then “So-and-So Crescent” for that particular stop.
@Graham Feakins,
The “via” requirements was as much as anything to alert potential passengers of the route taken as it could be more expensive. Usually the “‘via” was to indicate that a route other than the “main” route was taken – a bit like the feathers on a colour light signal. Obviously with flat fares this requirement has gone.
Another reason for “via” was for garage journeys -especially where more than one option was possible If I recall correctly The old route 94 had this as for the buses that came from Catford Garage as it was possible for them to approach from the Bromley direction or the Lewisham direction. With garage journeys being distinctly out of favour this is no longer relevant.
GF / PoP
It’s still damned inconvenient, though.
“Via” displays are very useful, even to Londoners on the wrong/opposite side of town, never mind visitors……
@PoP – Sorry, I meant the ‘intermediate’ destination blind with important locations via which buses would travel between destinations, rather than e.g. “via Westminster” or “via Blackfriars”. There’s probably a better term than ones I have used.
@Greg,
I agree and mourn the loss of detail. Leon Daniels say everyone knows where the bus is going and the information is available on the stop anyway. Someone else pointed out that the reason older people know where it is going is because it used to display the route and people remember that.
@Graham Feakins
Aha. These were intended as destination blinds but ever since the 1970s when they were introduced on One Man Operated (as then called) buses the unions have told their members not to change them. So London Transport (then) did the best they could and introduced “via” blinds so that they still had some benefit. My suspicion is that they are now motorised and linked to the main blind. In fact I am not even sure if the driver changes this or it is done automatically – you certainly see the front blind changing with the driver apparently oblivious to what is going on.
Side blinds with destinations can be very useful (e.g. at Purley Cross) where some routes do a small loop to serve a particular stop in both directions. If they really have managed to automate them I really don’t see why we can’t have a complete route description on the side. It only has to be readable from a short distance.
@Greg Tingey
“Via” displays are very useful, even to Londoners on the wrong/opposite side of town, never mind visitors……”
I have to say that trying to explain them to visitor points out the problem with them: you can’t tell if they bus has already been to the “via” point or is still “via”.
Let’s pick a bus at random: the 192 bus, catching it at Tescos, Lee Valley.
OK, you can’t tell which direction the bus goes, because the same stop serves both north and southbound. And you can only see the side of the bus, because you’re walking back from the store.
“192 via Edmonton” it says on the side.
so, where’s the bus going? To Tottenham Hale or Enfield Town.
Ok, a more “standard setup”. The 55 bus says on the front “Clarkenwell Road, Hackney”.
You get out of Old Street station and you want to Hackney. Do you take the 55 that says this on the front?
Or do you get all the way to Oxford Circus before you realise you’re never going to get to Hackney.
“via” would be all well and good if the bus “blinds” signs were electronic and updated the via information as they go.
I can’t think of anything more confusing for visitors than bus signs that say where the bus has come from!
Interesting article – thank you. There’s been a lot of talk in the comments about pollution. How about noise? There are lots of Volvo ‘deckers running around with, I presume, turbochargers that make them sound like giant hoovers. Where you have a lot of routes together with such engines the noise can be quite disturbing. I simply don’t understand why these vehicles are so powered when buses before and after are quieter running.
Recently on a Sunday morning I was standing at the bottom of Kensington Church Street and one of these vehicles went past – I could hear it all the way to the Odeon Cinema at the far end of Kensington High Street. If anyone can explain……….
Just showing the ultimate destination can be silly – no-one should need to take a 521 from Waterloo all the way to London Bridge – indeed during the imminent non-stopping of Charing Cross trains at LB, tickets are only going to be accepted on the 381 and RV1, not the 521
And who knows where Angel Road is? (Fortunately, the 341 passes the better -known “Angel” in Islington en route).
@Savoy Circus
“So for example travelling towards London on the N9 at Henlys Corner the next stop is called Great West Road even though that is not the exit taken from the roundabout.”
Henlys Corner is in Finchley, where the A1 , meets the North Circular – something is seriously wrong if an N9 has got there – even more so if it is announcing the Great West Road!
The N9 runs along the Bath Road, which meets the Great West Road/Great South West Road at the Henlys roundabout. The stop to the west of the roundabout is called “Henlys Roundabout”, so the next stop to the east has to be called something else and the Great West Road is the nearest landmark. It would obviously be ridiculous to call either stop “Bath Road” – the N9 must call at a dozen or more stops on that road. It’s the road you are crossing that matters. (The N9 actually meets the GtWestRd at the other end, at the Chiswick roundabout)
(In the same way, the Hampstead Tube called the station north of Leicester Square “Oxford Street”, but the Central London railway called its station, right next door, “Tottenham Court Road”. Each name was distinctive for its respective line, but would have been (indeed is) ambiguous for the other (the Hampstead had three stations on TCRd, the Central has five on Oxford Street)
There is also a problem with maintaining historic names. I remember “Henlys Corner” when Henlys (a car showroom by then) was still there but it removed entirely in the last century and with the North Circular being widened the ‘corner’ is now mostly *under* the road. I’m not sure anyone recently arrived in the area and looking for a bus route would be seeking it under that name anyway.
I refuse to comment about blinds – I’ve read hundreds of posts on other forums and never yet seen a satisfactory conclusion to the debate.
@ P Wylie – I think we’ve done “roaring Volvos” before but let’s do it again. The vehicles, Volvo B7TLs, have a rather loud fan which is what causes the roar when it has to work hard to cool the engine. A modification does exist because the Volvos on my local route used to scream but don’t anymore having been through a refurb programme when Arriva gained a second contract term using the same buses. I have no idea why refurbs have not been mandated on all Volvo B7s on TfL work. I do know that TfL told operators not to buy any more of them because of complaints. The chassis was subsequently updated to the Volvo B9TL which don’t roar. I suspect that the remaining B7s may not be in TfL service for many more years in unmodified form. Many have had emission related mods which I think have also tackled the fan issue. The Volvo vehicles used on the 28/31/328, that you undoubtedly heard at HSK, are contracted until April 2016 when the routes may get a 2 year extension or may be retendered. If retendered then I’d expect brand new vehicles to be required due to the age of the existing buses. I’d also expect them to be hybrid vehicles given where the services run. I doubt these routes would get NB4Ls on them due to clearance issues so there’s little prospect of a vehicle type change prior to April 2016.
Timbeau 08 jan 1423
Thanks for clarifying Henlys Roundabout and Henlys Corner
There are quite a few roundabouts still called corner
Hyde Park Corner
Shannon Corner (N87)
Apex Corner (N113)
Staples Corner (N16)
Tibbet’s Corner (93)
…………..and Apex Corner has a namesake in Hanworth, a five-way roundabout where the A305 meets the A312, with the A316 flyover above it all – buses 285, 290, 490
Bus strike tomorrow
If management are having difficuly understanding the drivers’ grievance, here is a short video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoE_6ncwESM
@ Timbeau – not seen the video before and amusing in its way. However surely bus drivers are all being paid in “grapes” but it is the quantity of grapes that is the issue?
I laughed out loud, along with the audience of that video! Point well made. Can someone give me/us a short explanation of the drivers’ dispute.
@ Fandroid – the key demands from Unite are (in my view)
1. The abolition of company level pay rates that vary by experience / length of service.
2. The abolition of company level pay negotiation. They want one negotiation for all operators. The subtext to this is to increase union power to bring London to a halt in the same way that the tube unions can exert a wider pressure. See the press release below for the comparison with tube unions.
3. Another subtext – the abolition of the tendering regime which the union considers to be the main issue behind a downwards push on drivers’ wages. In short Unite want a nice public sector unified employer who they can hold to ransom.
Unite’s view is in this press release.
Now if you accept there is some validity to those subtexts then we are straying badly into a political dispute and not one centred on drivers’ pay. There is no doubt that wages are by far the biggest element of a route contract’s costs – about 60-70%. Clearly the wider political context set from City Hall has been to squeeze the level of bus subsidy by driving down tender costs and pushing up fares. TfL are on record as saying that operators are bidding very hard to retain existing and win new route contracts. That’s inevitably fed through to things like low starter salaries for new staff including those who move between companies voluntarily (regardless of experience). Some experienced drivers who have changed operators can be stuck on a starter rate for years and this is one of factors that has annoyed drivers (based on posts I’ve read on forums). The other thing is the varying pay rates between companies. There is also the issue of drivers who are forced to transfer companies via TUPE and there being pressure from the new company to “buy out” higher TUPE rates of pay.
There’s no doubt that there are risks for all sides in any dispute. Drivers do appear to be fed up with their pay, treatment by management and the never ending pressure on performance (via the I-Bus system). Bus companies are desparate to retain work but have little room for manoeuvre in terms of costs. The other risk for the bus companies is that if we do get a much improved labour market then people will leave the industry to take up better paid work with less stressful conditions. Forever squashing pay in those market conditions doesn’t work because you can’t recruit and you get high turnover and then the ability to run the service reduces and then the operator gets punished via the contract performance regime for badly performing services.
It’s not an easy situation and I can’t see the operators agreeing to any of Unite’s demands. They have no incentive to do so nor does TfL who rely on competition for tenders to secure value for money from the bus contract budget. TfL also don’t want to be seen to be involved in pay issues because they opens up two negotiating fronts and moves the risk from the operators. I expect we will hear the inevitable demands from Unite for TfL and the Mayor to intervene to “solve” the dispute.
Until the Mayor changes there will be no wider policy change either so we could be stuck with problems for a long while. I am not convinced that Unite can sustain a long campaign because the “yes” vote proportion was low and drivers on the higher rates of pay will not want to see uniform rates of pay if it means they lose out. We’ll see tomorrow how well supported the strike is – not every operator [1] or garage is affected so a few select routes should run normally.
[1] Sullivans, Quality Line, Arriva the Shires, Arriva Kent Thameside / TGM are not on strike. These operators are all based outside of Greater London.
Billet Roundabout in Walthamstow – now rebuilt as a n other roundabout with humungous fly-under for the A 406 ….
fandroid
Umpteen different bus companies in London with widely differing pay rates for the same job – is the cause, as far as I can see.
Standing aside of WW’s politics, as a usually bus passenger it would seem to me that if two drivers are driving the same route but that route is shared between two operators then both drivers should receive the same basic rate for the job. At present, aiui, they don’t.
@ Alison W – I can’t think of a single route that is shared by two operators in London. Routes were reorganised many years ago to get rid of joint working which is why we have the 8 / 98 and 14 / 91 and 22 / 242 as just a few examples of former cross London routes that are now separate. You might have buses from different companies driving down the same bit of road but on different services.
I’m not expressing any political view btw. I was merely thinking what other motives may exist for the union and what is the likely view at City Hall. I don’t believe the Mayor has made any comment to date about the dispute and I don’t foresee any great change to the drive for more efficiencies from TfL even though TfL have juggled the money round to try to boost bus services a bit.
I can’t see any easy answers. All I do know from my own work experience is that many people do the same work against the same broad generic job descriptions and can be on vastly differing salaries – especially where there may be different rates of progression and performance pay awards. That is inevitable in today’s job market. I never made any great fuss about my pay and rations and certainly didn’t push and push and push for progression and greater performance awards as some colleagues did. Sometimes their efforts were successful so it was inevitable that we were all on vastly differing pay levels for doing broadly the same job although clearly some were more experienced than others. I am sure someone could mount a spirited argument to say we should all have been on the same salary but I can’t see the HR department nor those on higher salaries agreeing.
I know from my use of buses that there are good, bad and average drivers. Some are polite and helpful, others are grumpy and struggle to raise even an eyebrow of acknowledgement even if you use a route very regularly. I don’t know if drivers have any element of performance pay in their salaries but beyond the essential core skill of driving safely and competently there could be reasons for differing levels of remuneration.
Nonetheless the structure of the industry and procurement process for running bus routes in London runs completely against there being a single, uniform pay rate and a single negotiating process. There is zero incentive for the operators to switch away from that – only a change in the legislation that govern’s TfL obligations can move us away from the tendered service model. I see zero prospect of that from any politician.
No surprise issues like this come up in a city so expensive to live in. It’s people on ‘average’ kinda jobs that are hit. Those at the top AND bottom are insulated that means someone on 30k is doing worse as the have to pay for housing etc out of their own pocket with no help.
We see it in the police in London, paramedics leaving and now even bus drivers. It wont go away. Root and branch reform is needed of basic living costs. Demand for high pay could push up fares which streth the non-subsidised elsewhere. London is worse than every other EU capital.
[This is getting awfully close to the point where it is becoming a political point and not really transport related – in which case the comment gets deleted. Just warning. PoP]
WW
Point of information, without any comment
( as PoP says this is very close to irrelevant politics )
Boris was on Radio4 this morning, pushing for “union” votes that would require stricter rules than those that get MP’s (or London Mayors) elected.
@WW
“I can’t think of a single route that is shared by two operators in London. ”
The video that was shown on the news interveiwng drivers suggested that payscales can differ between two garages operating the same route, even though operated by the same company. If I understood the drivers correctly, one garage had been TUPEd in from another company with different pay rates.
There are jobs where pay is related to experience or performance, but it is hard to justify this for a solo job where a reletively high degree of competence/training is already required before you are allowed to do the job at all. (They don’t let trainees drive buses in service, nor can any drivers have a supervisory role).
@WW0023
“I’m not expressing any political view btw. I was merely thinking what other motives may exist for the union and what is the likely view at City Hall.”
@1842 “in my view…. the subtext to this is …….”
For clarification, is this “subtext” your opinion, or one you are attributing to City Hall?