Bus Passenger Survey: biggest and best ever!

25 September 2013

After a sustained period of work from colleagues with bus operators and various transport authorities, we have now secured significant boost funding from the bus industry to both deepen and broaden the reach of the Passenger Focus Bus Passenger Survey (BPS). This comparative benchmarking survey is a powerful driver for change as it flags up where operators and local authorities are doing well and where they need to improve.

We plan to survey just over 30,000 bus passengers this autumn, considerably exceeding last year’s total of 22,000 passenger responses. This is due in small part to the growing influence and credibility of this work. We’ve come a long way since the first BPS in 2009-10 where we secured 18,500 responses!

This year’s work has seen significant boost funding from several transport authority areas in addition to several commercial bus operators. For the first time our BPS work will include some research in Scotland  – First in Glasgow and Lothian Buses.

I’ve copied below a table outlining the geographic areas we will be covering and the anticipated responses from passengers. The difference in the total columns indicates an area/operation where we have secured boost funding. These areas cover a small number of ‘first time’ BPS areas with the rest made up of repeat coverage:

	Responses – target total	Responses funded by PF
AUTUMN WAVE
West Midlands / Centro	2900	1200
Coventry Bus Partnership	750	0
G. Manchester / TFGM	2400	1200
Tyne and Wear / Nexus	1900	800
Mersey / Merseytravel	1800	800
South Yorks	1750	800
West Yorks / Metro	1950	800
Tees Valley	2000	600
Northumberland CC	990	99
Suffolk	900	400
Norfolk	1200	325
Reading Buses	900	135
Abellio routes	600	200
Devon CC	750	112.5
York	1000	400
Thurrock	500	200
West England Partnership	1800	700
Milton Keynes	500	169
Essex CC	600	300
Blackpool	500	500
Kent CC	600	600
Lancashire	600	600
First Buses Glasgow	2000	0
Lothian Buses	1200	0