please empty your brain below
Geoff Marshall of All the Stations fame last week released a YouTube video of his travel on the routes 389 and 399. Starring Kofi the driver, his regular passengers/ friends and Jose Murinho’s front garden.

dg writes: There's a link in the post.

Kenneth Morton | 12.11.20 - 9:09 a.m. | #

Will be interesting to see what routes survive. I'm always still surprised to see the 81 going all the way out to Slough for example.

R | 12.11.20 - 9:37 a.m. | #

Splendid stuff! Thanks.

Matt | 12.11.20 - 9:56 a.m. | #

Remarkable research, thank you DG. My brain is struggling to grasp the significance of the ‘most crowded’ analysis, but does your conclusion translate to average occupancy; ie is it the case, then, that the bus network as a whole, across all the millions of km operated, only carries fewer than 5 passengers per bus at any one point?

Phil | 12.11.20 - 10:34 a.m. | #

No. Average occupancy would be total pax-km divided by total bus-km. The figures DG gives are total PAX divided by total bus-km. Only the same if every pax passenger travels one km.

Malcolm of Kent | 12.11.20 - 10:51 a.m. | #

Phil,

The average number on a bus is remarkably low. The main factors that lead to this are 'tails' of route and long hours of operation. Get on a many buses at one of their termini and you may find only one or two passengers onboard and as the journey progresses it gradually picks up numbers.

Early morning service and late night services often run nearly empty but are perceived to provide a public need. People are reluctant to rely on the last bus so a well-known consequence of cutting out the last bus from the timetable is that the new last bus is almost deserted.

Incidentally, this shows why you should never judge average occupancy by what you see when you are on a bus. Also it is absolutely no indication of how busy buses are on their busiest stretch.

Pedantic of Purley | 12.11.20 - 10:55 a.m. | #

The X140 is great for those of us who want a quick journey as it misses out most of the 140's stops!

It is immensely satisfying letting a 140 go to wait 5 extra mins for an X140 and then eventually passing the earlier bus!!

Cornish Cockney | 12.11.20 - 11:08 a.m. | #

Weird that the R5 gets 4000 more passengers than the R10 when they're basically the same route, just going a different way round the country loop south of Orpington.

Paul B | 12.11.20 - 11:13 a.m. | #

Thanks for the reminder to check on what's happened to the successor routes to route 115 in South London which started in 1984 and always seemed to struggle. Neither of the replacement routes seem to be on the little-used list now, and are hopefully providing much-needed east to west links in South London, which would otherwise be sorely lacking.

Cau1khead | 12.11.20 - 11:22 a.m. | #

The R5 runs seven times a day, the R10 six.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.11.20 - 11:57 a.m. | #

I expect the average number on a bus at any one time is considerably more than five, as that would imply the mean bus journey was 1km. I'd be surprised if it was as short as that (if you were divide ridership by the mileage rather than kilometrage you'd get a larger number).

timbo | 12.11.20 - 12:08 p.m. | #

Another reason not to judge bus custom by occupancy is that traffic can be severely directional, especially in peak hours on radial routes.

This was one aspect of the bus passenger counts which led to the major cutbacks of a few years ago. Observers in Kingsway and Park Lane noted 'empty' buses without allowing for the directional nature of passenger flow.

Joel | 12.11.20 - 12:31 p.m. | #

Looking up the timetable of the H3, you can see who it's aimed at, as while it operates 7 times a day, the last bus out of Golders Green leaves at 2pm!

Mikey C | 12.11.20 - 12:48 p.m. | #

Fascinating stuff from DG - a pleasant lunch time relief from Covid 19, Trump & cash for consultants.

A couple of queries:

It seems that the numbers getting on the buses is given by a count of the number of people who touch in on boarding. Is there any count of those who, either free-loaders who don't, or Old Londoners who can't be bothered?

How do they know where passengers get off the bus, and hence how far they have travelled?

dg writes:
a) I recommend reading the Notes tab on the spreadsheet.
b) They don't.

strawbrick | 12.11.20 - 12:48 p.m. | #

b) Which is why it is difficulty to estimate how many people, on average, are on a bus.

timbo | 12.11.20 - 2:21 p.m. | #

Re where people get off the bus, there is extensive modelling based partly on Oyster/contactless data of what people do next to build up an incomplete but still useful picture of journeys made. Examples would include entering a station served by that bus route at a sensible time after getting the bus, catching a second bus which has an overlapping route, or getting a bus on the same route in the opposite direction after a logical interval. Then there's easy stuff such as anyone getting on one stop before the terminus travelled to the terminus!

Ralph | 12.11.20 - 2:31 p.m. | #

I have a board game that I play with my young son called bus stop, which randomly models passengers boarding and leaving a bus enroute and hence occupancy.

That said, I have worked out a simplified version of Railway Rivals which we now play (simplifying the building costs).

MilesT | 12.11.20 - 5:44 p.m. | #

I'm surprised the 55 didn't hit the top 20, only reaching to 21st. I was looking forward to this year's figures of that route after the 48 withdrawal.

The 378 is a new route introduced that could be added your list, and maybe the 533 aswell.

PVR | 12.11.20 - 7:45 p.m. | #

The 378 and 533 are technically temporary (although with Hammersmith Bridge closed long-term, not very temporary).

Both have half a million passengers annually (or the equivalent of).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.11.20 - 7:55 p.m. | #

I find it funny to see the W7 being both the busiest route overall (passenger per km) and one of the emptiest deep at night.

Patrickov | 14.11.20 - 1:51 a.m. | #











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