In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, much of the UK’s commuter coach market has disappeared. DAVID JENKINS investigates
The Covid pandemic has wrought unprecedented changes on the public transport network. Official government statistics show that at its lowest level, demand for buses fell to just 10% of normal at one point, and bumped along at not much more than that for several weeks in spring 2020. It is fortunate that the governments of the UK realised that a minimum level of bus service was necessary to keep key workers moving, and each has provided enormousamounts of funding to ensure essential routes kept running.
Rail patronage has been affected even more acutely, bottoming out at 4% or 5% for most of spring 2020. Strongly impacted by a loss of office-based commuters, the sums provided in government support make those for bus services look like a drop in the ocean.
But while bus has climbed back to over 80% before falling back to 70% in early 2022, rail's recovery has been slower. 2020 never reached higher than 43% and took until May 2021 to exceed that. It briefly reached 70% of normal use in the autumn of 2021, a figure largely attributed to leisure use rather than the regular five-daya-week…
