Subsidy for TfL bus services is £600m a year!

[AM9]

Any source for your £600bn claim? A report from the Greater London Authority written in Feb 2016 gives a figure of £364bn: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_the_london_economy_report_full_low_res.pdf which is around 25% higher than the North of England:


https://www.ft.com/content/d4bcaaba-dbbe-11e5-98fd-06d75973fe09

You could argue up here many of the cross-Pennine road routes aren't accessible 365 days a year meaning cross-Pennine rail routes are imperative to the North's economy.

Actually there was a dollar-pound coversion error there so the figure that I should have stated was £483million. That was calculated from:

the ONS figure for London's GDP is 22% of the UK figure:
see references10 (and also11) on this page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_London
The UK GDP for 2016 was £2.757 trillion from the World Economic Outlook Databse, referfence 1 on this page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom​

My main point though is that despite London being a world-class city, and in many markets, a world leader, it's road infrastructure certainly isn't. In order for the city to function at a level that makes such a large contribution to the UK economy, the workforce cannot rely on private transport commuting as the city would quickly grind to a halt.
Therefore, an integrated transport system is provided at reasonable cost to encourage that workforce not to fill the roads with one person per car. There are both carrots and sticks here, - good public buses and train services and ever increasing congestion charges and parking restrictions for private motorists.

 

[WatcherZero]

The london authority figure is more accurate based on local tax reciepts, the ONS figure is distorted by many companies having their companies house registered tax address in London when its comonly just a PO Box.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

Another cost is the free travel given to all residents under 18, disabled, war veterans and over 60. IIRC something like 40% of passengers fall into one of these categories

 

[WatcherZero]

Yeah but its lower in London, 14% OAP journeys compared to a rest of England average of 31% and over 60% in some places like Blackpool. The total number of concessionary bus journeys in London is 300m whereas for the rest of England its 700m, £222m spent subsiding concessionary fares in London compared to £792m for the rest of England in 2014. An average of 69p per concessionary journey in London and £1.11 per concessionary journey in England reflecting that the average journey will be more than twice as far.

 

[radamfi]

If you look at the price for 1 month's unlimited travel, London looks particularly bad

Zones 1-2 Travelcard: £126.80
Stockholm: 830 SEK (30 days)
Copenhagen (2 zones): 375 DKK (30 days)
Copenhagen (4 zones): 700 DKK (30 days)
Bern (1-2 zones): 79 CHF
Munich (4 rings): 78.20 EUR

Even the 1 month Bus and Tram pass at £81.50 is expensive compared with the above.

 

[AM9]

The london authority figure is more accurate based on local tax reciepts, the ONS figure is distorted by many companies having their companies house registered tax address in London when its comonly just a PO Box.

Be that as it may, the purpose of good public transport in London is to persuade most commuters to leave their cars at home or at a station. The reference No. 11 on the Wikipedia page is from the City of London and the figure that it presents is 21% of UK GDP.

 

[AM9]

Yeah but its lower in London, 14% OAP journeys compared to a rest of England average of 31% and over 60% in some places like Blackpool. The total number of concessionary bus journeys in London is 300m whereas for the rest of England its 700m, £222m spent subsiding concessionary fares in London compared to £792m for the rest of England in 2014. An average of 69p per concessionary journey in London and £1.11 per concessionary journey in England reflecting that the average journey will be more than twice as far.

These comparisons of subsidy have no meaning in the real world once London's far greater contribution is acknowledged. In securing that valuable contribution, any concept of 'fairness' in levels the subsidy is also irrelevant. To try and level the playing field would need the GDP contribution of each region to be pitched against its subsidy. In London's case it is clearly an investment.

 

[radamfi]

London is particularly embarrassing compared to Paris, where the Navigo for a month costs 73.00 EUR for the entire Ile-de-France region, which is bigger than London Zones 1-6 (Monthly Travelcard is £231.20).

A monthly pass for Brussels is 49.00 EUR or 55.50 EUR.

 

[AM9]

London is particularly embarrassing compared to Paris, where the Navigo for a month costs 73.00 EUR for the entire Ile-de-France region, which is bigger than London Zones 1-6 (Monthly Travelcard is £231.20).

A monthly pass for Brussels is 49.00 EUR or 55.50 EUR.

Fares in Paris are lower because businesses that benefit from good transport services for their employees and/or their customers are required to contribute through local taxes. It has been that way since the start of the RER network construction.
The paltry business contribution to Crossrail may (hopefully) be the start of a similar wake-up call in London, (and any other large cities in the UK where business could benefit from good public transport).
Despite its high commuting costs though, London is still a world class magnet for money so I doubt that any right-wing government will change the status quo.

 

[pemma]

The london authority figure is more accurate based on local tax reciepts, the ONS figure is distorted by many companies having their companies house registered tax address in London when its comonly just a PO Box.

Good point. I wonder how much profit Sainsburys makes from it's London area stores compared to how much profit the business of Sainsburys makes, which has it's registered office in London.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Fares in Paris are lower because businesses that benefit from good transport services for their employees and/or their customers are required to contribute through local taxes. It has been that way since the start of the RER network construction.

The paltry business contribution to Crossrail may (hopefully) be the start of a similar wake-up call in London, (and any other large cities in the UK where business could benefit from good public transport).

Despite its high commuting costs though, London is still a world class magnet for money so I doubt that any right-wing government will change the status quo.

Sad but true. We have had the banking crisis used as an excuse for austerity/government spending cuts (i.e. "hollowing out of the state") - what odds that Brexit will now be used as a similar reason to reduce corporate taxation?

 

[HSTEd]

Question is do bus services need such a hefty subsidy? Elsewhere in the country PTE subsides for rail fares have been slashed while TfL's subsidies are getting out-of-control.

And TfL is one of the only authorities in the country where bus transport is not in catastrophic decline.

 

[pemma]

And TfL is one of the only authorities in the country where bus transport is not in catastrophic decline.

Yes I've seen the effect of an hourly subsided service replaced by a 2 hourly commercial service and similar.

However, once the frequency >every 15 minutes the benefits of a more frequent service are reduced. Are you more likely to use a bus because it's every 12 minutes rather than every 15, or because it's every 10 minutes rather than every 12? Do services in one part of the country need subsiding to give those very high frequencies while there's apparently no money to subside bus services in other parts of the country?

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Yes I've seen the effect of an hourly subsided service replaced by a 2 hourly commercial service and similar.

However, once the frequency >every 15 minutes the benefits of a more frequent service are reduced. Are you more likely to use a bus because it's every 12 minutes rather than every 15, or because it's every 10 minutes rather than every 12? Do services in one part of the country need subsiding to give those very high frequencies while there's apparently no money to subside bus services in other parts of the country?

Ask people in the bus industry and they will tell you that "turn up and go" frequency is maximum wait time of 10 minutes. Given the vagaries of traffic that actually needs a timetable at a slightly greater frequency whether every 9 minutes (timetable is ugly but users won't care because they don't refer to it) or more generously every 7.5 minutes (8 buses per hour). But to make money from such a service needs a reasonable level of use in the first place. The problem in this country is that so many people see buses as the means of last resort meaning that relatively few people who can drive will use them. As things stand the easiest way to boost bus usage is to make motoring inconvenient or expensive (or both!): that requires significant political will which rarely exists. It will be interesting to see if the soon-to-be-elected mayors of city regions will be able to have an impact.

 

[HSTEd]

Yes I've seen the effect of an hourly subsided service replaced by a 2 hourly commercial service and similar.

However, once the frequency >every 15 minutes the benefits of a more frequent service are reduced. Are you more likely to use a bus because it's every 12 minutes rather than every 15, or because it's every 10 minutes rather than every 12? Do services in one part of the country need subsiding to give those very high frequencies while there's apparently no money to subside bus services in other parts of the country?

Hourly services are still worthless.
Anything less than four an hour is probably not going to generate a close-to-self-sustaining service in the long run.
Spreading out all the money so that everyone gets a tiny bit of bus service is not really a good solution because it means buses become an irrelevance everywhere.

I can see an argument for concentrating all bus subsidies into a handful of areas as this is more likely to lead to chain-reactions that will lead to far more journeys being taken per £ of subsidy money expended.

 

[edwin_m]

And TfL is one of the only authorities in the country where bus transport is not in catastrophic decline.

Not quite true. Overall bus ridership in England outside London is certainly falling but is holding roughly steady in a few local authority areas. And bus usage in London fell in 2015-16, reversing the previous trend.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-bus-statistics-year-ending-march-2016

 

[edwin_m]

And TfL is one of the only authorities in the country where bus transport is not in catastrophic decline.

I'd say the decline outside London was gradual rather than catastrophic, falling in 2015-16 by 1.7% in metropolitan areas and 2.5% in non-metropolitan areas (both year on year for England outside London). Those figures continued a long-term trend, however the trend of increasing bus journeys in London reversed in 2015-16 with a fall of 3%.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-bus-statistics-year-ending-march-2016

 

[HSTEd]

I'd say the decline outside London was gradual rather than catastrophic, falling in 2015-16 by 1.7% in metropolitan areas and 2.5% in non-metropolitan areas (both year on year for England outside London). Those figures continued a long-term trend, however the trend of increasing bus journeys in London reversed in 2015-16 with a fall of 3%.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-bus-statistics-year-ending-march-2016

Indeed, but that rate of decline has been continuous for a decade or more. Which adds up to catastrophic to me - it might be a slow motion catastrophe but it does point towards the extinction of all significant bus service over much of the country.

According to these statistics it costs something like £3/vehicle-mile to run a bus.
I wonder what the figure is for the operating cost of a short tram vehicle - that would allow us to draw up a metric on when bus routes start to lose out to streetcars/trams.

 

[edwin_m]

The decline in nationwide bus ridership has actually been pretty much continuous since the 1960s at least.

I would guess the cost of running a bus isn't much different from running a tram of similar size. The tram would use less energy but the driver is probably paid a bit more and there is infrastructure maintenance to take into account. Trams come into their own when there are enough passengers to justify running a vehicle bigger than a bus.

 

[Busaholic]

Indeed, but that rate of decline has been continuous for a decade or more. Which adds up to catastrophic to me - it might be a slow motion catastrophe but it does point towards the extinction of all significant bus service over much of the country.

According to these statistics it costs something like £3/vehicle-mile to run a bus.
I wonder what the figure is for the operating cost of a short tram vehicle - that would allow us to draw up a metric on when bus routes start to lose out to streetcars/trams.

The elephant in the room with the tram is that the tracks can't miraculously appear overnight, or even within a decade in some cases, even when a 'scheme' has got over all the hurdles, logistical and financial. I think we have a prevailing anti-tram culture in government, local government and even among certain bus companies where their bus networks may be perceived as under threat so the operating cost once all those have been overcome is almost an irrelevance.

 

[HSTEd]

The decline in nationwide bus ridership has actually been pretty much continuous since the 1960s at least.

I would guess the cost of running a bus isn't much different from running a tram of similar size. The tram would use less energy but the driver is probably paid a bit more and there is infrastructure maintenance to take into account. Trams come into their own when there are enough passengers to justify running a vehicle bigger than a bus.

I would imagine even using the ~25m stub trams that they will come out cheaper than buses, the question is how many trams would have to be run to overwhelm the capital charge increases from using trams.

Which depends on interest rates, estimated lifespans of the capital and whehter it turns into Besançon or Edinburgh in cost terms.
If you assume the capital lasts sixty years you will oviously get a different answer than if you expect it to be paid back in a decade.

EDIT

According to this report the average cost of operating an Edinburgh tram is projected to be £3.15 per tram-km - which is £5.04 per tram-mile. Albeit for a 42m tram with a significantly increased capacity relative to a bus. [250 versus 88 for a double-deck]
What we really need to know is what the cost of operating a double decker is compared to the average. And the operating cost of a 25m tram compared to a 42m one.

 

[plcd1]

A few comments on this topic.

It tends to be forgotten that the "subsidy" number for London includes a significant capital replacement element given that TfL's contracts for a proportion of routes includes new buses or refurbishment. TfL used to present these numbers in its business plan but didn't in the last one. I FOI'd the numbers and roughly the numbers from 2016/7 range from £324m to £487m in 2020/21. The fluctuation here will reflect the impact of the Mayor's Air Quality agenda and a push for cleaner new vehicles or upgrades to all remaining vehicles to euro6 equivalence. Set against the £600m total subsidy we can see that service or income subsidy is closer to £300m per annum which is not very much given the wider arguments set out by others. London has also had declining rates of car ownership and usage for many years which is contrary to the national trends. London also has more economic activity spread across the capital and for longer hours than many conurbations and effective public transport is needed to make that work.

Given the air quality issues in London it is probably not legal for any Mayor to introduce policies that positively encouraged the use of more private transport that had damaging emissions impacts. It will be interesting to see what measures are incorporated in the next Mayoral Transport Strategy which is due out for consultation soon (but probably delayed by the possible GE).

Mr Adamfi rightly points out that the Tube makes an operating surplus. By 2020/21 all TfL rail services - DLR, Overground, Crossrail - also have to make a surplus. Please show me an urban rail network elsewhere in the country that will do that. Those surplusses go towards funding other TfL operations plus investment plus paying back loans and interest payments.

TfL is losing £200m pa revenue grant by 2018. Is there anywhere else that has lost the entirety of its fares subsidy? I know some council areas have ceased to support non remunerative / socially necessary services but that's not quite the same thing as they still have to fund concessionary travel and govt provides some money for that. TfL's statutory concessions are funded by the Boroughs. Other concessions, imposed by the Mayor, are funded from TfL coffers.

I would also point out that TfL's bus network patronage is in decline for the reasons set out in Mr Busaholic's early post in this thread. However there seems to be something else going on too. You might have reasonably expected the Hopper ticket to have boosted bus use to some degree given it effectively cuts fares for some people. However the latest numbers for this year show patronage down 70m pass jnys for P1-12 in 2016/7 with no obvious sign of recovery or even a slowing down of the rate of passenger loss. I don't think anyone really knows what is driving passenger losses.

TfL are embarking on a significant programme of route and frequency reductions. Around 1/3 of the changes are taking place without any great publicity or consulation - frequencies are being chopped on trunk routes, routes are losing sections as "temporary" changes become permanent (e.g. route 283 now permanently cut to Hammersmith). We also have the prospect of huge cuts in Central London and absolutely no sign of any resources being diverted to Outer London as promised. The current TfL business plan has capped total network mileage for the next 5 years which means any expansion has to be countered by cuts elsewhere. This is a ludicrous prospect (IMO, of course) if population increases continue.

So, in short, yes there are loads of very sensible reasons for TfL's bus network to be subsidised. I also wish the rest of the country could have sensible levels of subsidy so every local authority area had decent and appropriate service levels / quality / concessions that they felt they needed to help their residents / businesses / visitors to function.

 

[pemma]

The elephant in the room with the tram is that the tracks can't miraculously appear overnight, or even within a decade in some cases, even when a 'scheme' has got over all the hurdles, logistical and financial. I think we have a prevailing anti-tram culture in government, local government and even among certain bus companies where their bus networks may be perceived as under threat so the operating cost once all those have been overcome is almost an irrelevance.

There is the half-way house solutions of trolley buses. There are modern trolley buses in countries like Austria so it's not just a historic transport method that is no longer viable. The one big advantage they have is they can travel for a short distance off the wires so they can drive around a broken down vehicle or divert along a non-wired road during roadworks.

 

[Mikey C]

A few comments on this topic.

It tends to be forgotten that the "subsidy" number for London includes a significant capital replacement element given that TfL's contracts for a proportion of routes includes new buses or refurbishment. TfL used to present these numbers in its business plan but didn't in the last one. I FOI'd the numbers and roughly the numbers from 2016/7 range from £324m to £487m in 2020/21. The fluctuation here will reflect the impact of the Mayor's Air Quality agenda and a push for cleaner new vehicles or upgrades to all remaining vehicles to euro6 equivalence. Set against the £600m total subsidy we can see that service or income subsidy is closer to £300m per annum which is not very much given the wider arguments set out by others. London has also had declining rates of car ownership and usage for many years which is contrary to the national trends. London also has more economic activity spread across the capital and for longer hours than many conurbations and effective public transport is needed to make that work.

Given the air quality issues in London it is probably not legal for any Mayor to introduce policies that positively encouraged the use of more private transport that had damaging emissions impacts. It will be interesting to see what measures are incorporated in the next Mayoral Transport Strategy which is due out for consultation soon (but probably delayed by the possible GE).

Mr Adamfi rightly points out that the Tube makes an operating surplus. By 2020/21 all TfL rail services - DLR, Overground, Crossrail - also have to make a surplus. Please show me an urban rail network elsewhere in the country that will do that. Those surplusses go towards funding other TfL operations plus investment plus paying back loans and interest payments.

TfL is losing £200m pa revenue grant by 2018. Is there anywhere else that has lost the entirety of its fares subsidy? I know some council areas have ceased to support non remunerative / socially necessary services but that's not quite the same thing as they still have to fund concessionary travel and govt provides some money for that. TfL's statutory concessions are funded by the Boroughs. Other concessions, imposed by the Mayor, are funded from TfL coffers.

I would also point out that TfL's bus network patronage is in decline for the reasons set out in Mr Busaholic's early post in this thread. However there seems to be something else going on too. You might have reasonably expected the Hopper ticket to have boosted bus use to some degree given it effectively cuts fares for some people. However the latest numbers for this year show patronage down 70m pass jnys for P1-12 in 2016/7 with no obvious sign of recovery or even a slowing down of the rate of passenger loss. I don't think anyone really knows what is driving passenger losses.

TfL are embarking on a significant programme of route and frequency reductions. Around 1/3 of the changes are taking place without any great publicity or consulation - frequencies are being chopped on trunk routes, routes are losing sections as "temporary" changes become permanent (e.g. route 283 now permanently cut to Hammersmith). We also have the prospect of huge cuts in Central London and absolutely no sign of any resources being diverted to Outer London as promised. The current TfL business plan has capped total network mileage for the next 5 years which means any expansion has to be countered by cuts elsewhere. This is a ludicrous prospect (IMO, of course) if population increases continue.

So, in short, yes there are loads of very sensible reasons for TfL's bus network to be subsidised. I also wish the rest of the country could have sensible levels of subsidy so every local authority area had decent and appropriate service levels / quality / concessions that they felt they needed to help their residents / businesses / visitors to function.

It has been suggested that road congestion has had a detrimental affect on bus usage, with causes such as
1) Ubers providing an alternative AND adding more car traffic
2) Home deliveries of internet shopping - all those vans delivering your Amazon parcels etc
3) The cycle super highways, with congestion during their construction, and taking out road capacity once operational

What's different from previous times is the air quality issue. It's not as if TfL can save money by letting operators keep buses for longer, as with the need for better air quality, heavy investment will continue to be needed, with fully electric buses the next stage

 

[pemma]

The decline in nationwide bus ridership has actually been pretty much continuous since the 1960s at least.

Public transport usage in general was in decline. I don't know about every area but it seemed by the mid-00s demand for public transport usage had rocketed but it seemed it was accepted that rail and light rail services needed improving - extra carriages or more services, yet little investment was made in bus services, unless it's third party funding.

In my area Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (before they became Astra Zeneca) provided funding for improved local bus services after opening a large facility at a rural location. Now they are scaling back the facility and no longer provide funding for bus services those services have been cut back again, despite other businesses planning to move in to the buildings that Astra Zeneca no longer use.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

A few comments on this topic.

TfL is losing £200m pa revenue grant by 2018. Is there anywhere else that has lost the entirety of its fares subsidy? I know some council areas have ceased to support non remunerative / socially necessary services but that's not quite the same thing as they still have to fund concessionary travel and govt provides some money for that. TfL's statutory concessions are funded by the Boroughs. Other concessions, imposed by the Mayor, are funded from TfL coffers.

Sorry Paul but I have to pull you up on that.

Concessionary travel is administered locally by Travel Concession Authority (TCA). Historically, concessionary travel funding from Central Government was ring fenced (though funding fell well short of the actual cost to bus operators of carrying concessionary travel passengers who would not otherwise have travelled).

Instead, Central Government provides funds ENCTS via the Formula Grant, which is administered by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Formula Grant is a non-ring fenced, un-hypothecated block grant. Everything has to come out of there, badged as giving local authorities the freedom and flexibility in the use of funding but really to hide the fact that it’s a totally inadequate sum in the first place but then being reduced.

ENCTS is a statutory obligation; they have to honour the scheme but increasingly have less money to pay for it. Instead, you see cuts to supported services across the board.

So I'd take issue that they pay money for it; it's non hypothecated and I'd venture that there is a strong correlation between those cuts in formula funding and cuts to supported services and the decline in provincial travel in recent years.

 

[HSTEd]

There is the half-way house solutions of trolley buses. There are modern trolley buses in countries like Austria so it's not just a historic transport method that is no longer viable. The one big advantage they have is they can travel for a short distance off the wires so they can drive around a broken down vehicle or divert along a non-wired road during roadworks.

Unfortunately the chance for any serious trolleybus scheme in the UK died with the Leeds one - that let itself get caught up designing an overspecced pseudo-tramway that drove the price up too high.

No minimum trolleybus scheme in sight unfortunately.

 

[Busaholic]

There is the half-way house solutions of trolley buses. There are modern trolley buses in countries like Austria so it's not just a historic transport method that is no longer viable. The one big advantage they have is they can travel for a short distance off the wires so they can drive around a broken down vehicle or divert along a non-wired road during roadworks.

I'm a big fan of trolleybuses and not just for nostalgic memories of my childhood. One huge sticking point in their reintroduction, though, is that there is hardly anybody in positions of authority in this country, or influential in passenger transport companies, who will stick their neck out and campaign for them. This is partly out of ignorance I would think i.e. they have never seen a successful trolleybus operation and/or still think a trolleybus has to stick to its wires. I'm afraid you also have the huge commercial interests of the battery and hybrid bus manufacturers where nirvana is always just around the corner, but in reality may be 10 or 20 years away or (dare I say it) may never occur in the form it has been promised.

 

[Busaholic]

A few comments on this topic.

It tends to be forgotten that the "subsidy" number for London includes a significant capital replacement element given that TfL's contracts for a proportion of routes includes new buses or refurbishment. TfL used to present these numbers in its business plan but didn't in the last one. I FOI'd the numbers and roughly the numbers from 2016/7 range from £324m to £487m in 2020/21. The fluctuation here will reflect the impact of the Mayor's Air Quality agenda and a push for cleaner new vehicles or upgrades to all remaining vehicles to euro6 equivalence. Set against the £600m total subsidy we can see that service or income subsidy is closer to £300m per annum which is not very much given the wider arguments set out by others. London has also had declining rates of car ownership and usage for many years which is contrary to the national trends. London also has more economic activity spread across the capital and for longer hours than many conurbations and effective public transport is needed to make that work.

Given the air quality issues in London it is probably not legal for any Mayor to introduce policies that positively encouraged the use of more private transport that had damaging emissions impacts. It will be interesting to see what measures are incorporated in the next Mayoral Transport Strategy which is due out for consultation soon (but probably delayed by the possible GE).

Mr Adamfi rightly points out that the Tube makes an operating surplus. By 2020/21 all TfL rail services - DLR, Overground, Crossrail - also have to make a surplus. Please show me an urban rail network elsewhere in the country that will do that. Those surplusses go towards funding other TfL operations plus investment plus paying back loans and interest payments.

TfL is losing £200m pa revenue grant by 2018. Is there anywhere else that has lost the entirety of its fares subsidy? I know some council areas have ceased to support non remunerative / socially necessary services but that's not quite the same thing as they still have to fund concessionary travel and govt provides some money for that. TfL's statutory concessions are funded by the Boroughs. Other concessions, imposed by the Mayor, are funded from TfL coffers.

I would also point out that TfL's bus network patronage is in decline for the reasons set out in Mr Busaholic's early post in this thread. However there seems to be something else going on too. You might have reasonably expected the Hopper ticket to have boosted bus use to some degree given it effectively cuts fares for some people. However the latest numbers for this year show patronage down 70m pass jnys for P1-12 in 2016/7 with no obvious sign of recovery or even a slowing down of the rate of passenger loss. I don't think anyone really knows what is driving passenger losses.

TfL are embarking on a significant programme of route and frequency reductions. Around 1/3 of the changes are taking place without any great publicity or consulation - frequencies are being chopped on trunk routes, routes are losing sections as "temporary" changes become permanent (e.g. route 283 now permanently cut to Hammersmith). We also have the prospect of huge cuts in Central London and absolutely no sign of any resources being diverted to Outer London as promised. The current TfL business plan has capped total network mileage for the next 5 years which means any expansion has to be countered by cuts elsewhere. This is a ludicrous prospect (IMO, of course) if population increases continue.

So, in short, yes there are loads of very sensible reasons for TfL's bus network to be subsidised. I also wish the rest of the country could have sensible levels of subsidy so every local authority area had decent and appropriate service levels / quality / concessions that they felt they needed to help their residents / businesses / visitors to function.

On the subject of transfer of bus resources from central to outer London, I'm reminded of how Peter Hendy, in his last days at TfL, warned of rioting in the future if public transport, and specifically buses, came nowhere meeting the demand of Londoners to get to work, especially in parts of the capital with huge population increases. He got some stick on this forum for those comments, but the criticisms were more muted publically because of his standing in the industry. I might just add that I endorsed his views.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm a big fan of trolleybuses and not just for nostalgic memories of my childhood. One huge sticking point in their reintroduction, though, is that there is hardly anybody in positions of authority in this country, or influential in passenger transport companies, who will stick their neck out and campaign for them. This is partly out of ignorance I would think i.e. they have never seen a successful trolleybus operation and/or still think a trolleybus has to stick to its wires. I'm afraid you also have the huge commercial interests of the battery and hybrid bus manufacturers where nirvana is always just around the corner, but in reality may be 10 or 20 years away or (dare I say it) may never occur in the form it has been promised.

A trolleybus can't be any bigger than a motor bus. It will be slightly faster and probably use a bit less power than a hybrid due to better regeneration, but a good deal more than a tram of equivalent size due to losses in the tyres. It eliminates emissions at the point of use, at least in areas where it is running under a visually obtrusive two-wire overhead, but diesel buses are improving in this respect and faster than diesel cars. The latest scare is that particulates from tyre wear are causing nearly as much harm as diesel exhaust anyway.

In view of the marginal nature of the advantages over a bus and a tram, and having some of the disadvantages of both, it's not too surprising that relatively few cities operate trolleybuses and these tend to be places with steep hills and really serious emissions issues.