Transport User Voice – April 2021 – Getting passengers back on buses

29 March 2021

The route ahead after Covid-19

Buses are so important for so many people. They are a lifeline in providing links to work, education, appointments, sports and more. And they are essential to the economy.

This is why we expect bus passengers across Great Britain would have welcomed the National Bus Strategy announcement earlier this month. The strategy sets out a welcome ambitious investment on the things that we know are key priorities for both current bus passengers and those considering using the bus – more services running more reliably and providing better value.

We will work with Government, bus operators and transport authorities to make sure passengers’ needs are at the heart of new arrangements.

Since the pandemic, safety and cleanliness have become ever more important factors for bus passengers. So, it is vital that the industry can also convince those returning to making a bus trip that they are doing all they can to make services clean and safe to use.

Throughout the Covid-19 crisis Transport Focus has been publishing insight to ensure transport users’ voices are heard by transport providers and governments. Our regular reports have provided invaluable, independent evidence on transport users’ views. This ensures decisionmakers can understand what transport users want – and, just as importantly, lapsed users – and respond to their needs.

Transport Focus has also carried out further research on the attitudes of passengers and non-users towards bus services since the start of the pandemic. This latest research, which was done during December 2020 and January 2021, is our most in-depth investigation of the subject yet. We aim to publish results and our recommendations in a report in early April 2021.

We are following up with a major survey of how people feel about using buses during the pandemic. This includes those who have stopped using buses and those who rarely use them. This will help flesh out our initial findings.

We will be publishing the results of this follow-up research as soon as we can, so keep an eye out.

 

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