Buses performance data

Network performance statistics and customer feedback can tell us a lot about how well our bus services are operating - and what we can do to improve them.

Measuring performance

We measure network performance by comparing the number of kilometres a route has done in the last quarter.

We compare each quarter to the same quarter of the previous year, rather than the last quarter of the same year. This is because factors affecting performance, like traffic conditions, can vary depending on the time of year, so this system makes it possible to identify underlying trends.

Scheduled kilometres may not be met because journeys are cancelled or suspended due to:

  • Traffic congestion
  • Staff availability
  • Engineering problems or mechanical breakdown

Quality of service indicators (QSI) are used to monitor service reliability.

Customer satisfaction

We ask a sample of passengers to give a score out of 100 on a wide range of bus service features, based on the journey they have just made. Passengers are carefully selected each quarter to represent all bus passengers in London.

Recent figures can be found in the latest quarter summary document below.

Defining the passenger journey

A passenger journey is defined as one ride on a single vehicle - not a bus trip from A to B as this may include more than one bus ride.

Statistics include all London Buses' contracted services but exclude any non-scheduled kilometres, London Service Permit routes and other special services.

Bus speeds reports

We monitor the speeds of buses to understand the impacts of changing road network conditions. Bus speeds include time spent stationary (for example at traffic lights and at bus stops). Bus speeds are available for the entire network, by borough, and by route.

  • All data is in miles per hour
  • All AM data is taken for Mondays to Fridays, School and Non School days, between 07:00 and 10:00
  • At Route level, some routes may be appear twice. This is because a service change happened during a period. A service change may include a change to a route structure, contract or operator

Factors affecting performance

Quarter 1 2024/25 (01 April to 21 June 2024)

Bus Network Performance is affected by seasonality factors such as school holidays and seasonal weather conditions. This means when considering performance for a particular quarter it can be more meaningful to compare results with the same quarter in the previous year rather than the previous quarter.

Quarter 1 performance for 2024/25 for some metrics was better than the equivalent quarter last year but for others the performance was worse. Performance was generally worse than the last pre-pandemic Q1 in 2019-20.

The percentage of scheduled services that were operated in Q1 was slightly worse than Q1 last year and was worse than the pre-pandemic baseline.

There were several disruptive events which this quarter included NR strikes, the London Marathon, Ride London, UEFA Champions League Final and multiple central London demonstrations as well as utility works and several burst water mains/emergency works. Overall traffic lost mileage was worse than the same quarter last year.

Staff sickness/absence and shortage of drivers remained slightly higher than historic expectations, but the improvement achieved during 2023/24 has continued into Q1 which was much better than Q1 last year with the underlying position having stabilised, and the overall result was much better that the same quarter last year. Mileage not operated due to mechanical issues in Q1 was worse than the same quarter last year. Mechanical losses have been on an upward trend since the pandemic with issues around parts supply, engineering staff shortages and the roll out of electric vehicles.

Until 2017, average bus speeds had been in consistent decline, but the rate of decline slowed over the next three years, although speeds remained much slower than in 2014. The Covid pandemic restrictions saw bus speeds increase significantly in 2020 and whilst these began to fall back at the start of 2021, they remained slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels throughout 2022/23. In 2023/24, bus speeds were close to pre-pandemic levels and in Q1 this year they have fallen below the pre-pandemic baseline for the first time. Bus speeds in inner NE, inner SE, inner SW and outer SE London remain above pre-pandemic levels.

The dual Covid impacts of reduced passenger numbers and less traffic disruption had a large boosting effect on reliability in 2020-21 and to a lesser extent in 2021-22. In 2022-23 the network reliability performance had deteriorated beyond the pre-pandemic baseline, and this continued in 2023-24. Q1 EWT performance was marginally worse than Q1 last year with the timing of Easter having some impact. Before the start of the pandemic, inner London EWT had been improving whilst outer London had recorded a deterioration. Covid restrictions then brought about significant improvements across all areas of London. In Q1 all areas of London recorded worse EWT results than pre-pandemic levels.

Punctuality of low frequency services also saw a similar temporary boost due to Covid impacts after which performance deteriorated. Q1 performance was worse than pre-pandemic levels and worse than Q1 last year. Night bus performance had returned to more normal levels at a faster rate than day routes and in Q1 the percentage of night buses on-time was below pre-pandemic levels and worse than the same period last year.

International Bus Benchmarking Group

London is a member of the International Bus Benchmarking Group (IBBG), an international knowledge sharing network of bus companies. It was established in 2004 and is facilitated by Imperial College London.

Benchmarking is a continuous systematic process for evaluating the products, services, processes or organisations that are recognised as representing best practice for the purpose of organisational improvement. A blend of operational and customer metrics are used to track the performance of the bus network.

Every year, a review of buses performance monitoring is evaluated internally and presented to TfL's Independent Investment Programme Advisory Group (IIPAG) by Imperial College London to justify expenditure and ensure quality of service provided to passengers.

Demand-responsive bus performance

In 2019-20 we ran 2 service trials in Sutton and Ealing to explore how demand-responsive buses could:

  • Complement current public transport services
  • Reduce car dependency

We suspended and closed the trials in spring 2020 because of Government advice on non-essential travel.

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