The Best Places for bus growth
WHERE’S THE FABULOUS FOUR OF BUS GROWTH?
Which places had the fastest-growing bus services in the decade just gone?
The fabulous four of Brighton, Bristol, Bath and Reading (real shame it doesn’t begin with a ‘B’ - Beading, anyone?) saw a greater than 20 journeys per person per year increase (data from this report).
A further 14 places saw growth, though at a lesser level.
Interestingly, the 18 places that saw growth are concentrated in just 9 geographical clusters. These are:
Brighton & Hove
Bristol and surrounding area
Reading and surrounding area
Devon & Cornwall
Bournemouth & Poole
Southampton & Isle of Wight
Thurrock
Luton
Rutland
However, of course, some places bucked the austerity trend, and saw an increase in bus funding from the local authority. Of these places where bus use went up, these local authorities increased their bus spending in the last decade:
Cornwall
Bournemouth
Thurrock
Rutland
Spending was largely flat in Bath, Luton and Reading, though down a bit.
Interestingly, Bristol saw a big fall in local authority spending, combined with a big increase in use. Indeed, all of our fabulous four were places where local authority funding went down not up.
There were, in fact, a surprising number of places where local authority spending went up but usage went down. This was true in North East Lincolnshire, Bracknell Forest, Tyne & Wear, N Yorkshire, Warwickshire, Central Bedfordshire and Nottingham, though note the tram extension in Nottingham which will have made a big difference).
Journeys fell in the majority of places where funding went up.
Put all this data together and you get the following insight:
The fabulous four in context
I will make an effort to get each of the three managers that led the bus businesses in Brighton, Bristol and Bath and Reading onto The Freewheeling Podcast so we can ask them what caused them to be able to buck the trend.
