The bus is a key service for London and came up a lot in our future transport research. It is often the most accessible and affordable choice, and more people travel on the bus than rail or the Tube. In pre-pandemic times there were over 6 million bus journeys a day.

However, despite this, bus users have been historically under-represented compared to users of other public transport such as rail or the Tube. The bus is used most by lower income Londoners, including many key workers who have been keeping the capital running during the pandemic.

Time and time again, bus users put journey time and reliability as their top priorities, and our research again confirms this. But unfortunately, in recent years bus journey times have hit historic lows. At a time when more people need to be enticed away from their cars to choose public transport, poor bus performance puts people off. The solution to this problem is the prioritising of buses on London’s streets. If buses are prioritised on London’s roads, they will provide faster journey times and be a more reliable option.

We will be making the case for bus priority on London’s roads in a campaign which will launch later in the year. You can join our digital community to keep up to date with our work.