The number of passengers on London buses fell by around 1.5% between 2016/17 and 2017/18, according to Transport for London’s latest statistics, which have been gathered using a revised methodology.
TfL says the new method more accurately estimates the number of passengers who may not have touched in, in particular those using paper tickets or under-11s. It has applied this retrospectively to the data for 2016/17.
It now believes that 2.19billlion passenger journeys were made in 2016/17, 7.5% more than its earlier estimate, with most routes showing an increase of between 5% and 10%.
But there are some exceptions. The heritage Routemasters on route 15H (Tower Hill- Trafalgar Square) appear to have carried just over 108,000 passengers, 55% fewer than previously thought, while it estimates that 30% more journeys were made on peak hour express X68 (West Croydon-Russell Square).
The new methodology suggests that passenger numbers on several routes heading into Surrey from Kingston may have been exaggerated in the past. The numbers using the 406 and 418 (Kingston-Epsom) have both been revised downwards by just over 8%, along with those for the 216 (Kingston-Staines) and 465 (Kingston-Dorking), while the revi…
