As experts fear for future of UK capital’s bus network, some commuters are giving up entirely. London is not alone – with worrying implications for the poorest in society Few things say London more than a red double-decker. But the capital’s buses have a problem: they are getting slower. In congested streets, services are being squeezed.
And for the millions of people who rely on buses, more than any other form of London transport, journeys are ever longer. On the 22, a route through some of the busiest streets in the capital towards Oxford Circus, it’s easy to see why. Buses regularly get stuck in stop-start traffic… Strings of red lights frequently slowing buses down… And roadworks restrict the space in which buses can operate.… In 2025, the 22 was the second slowest bus in London, averaging just under 6mph. This is 16% slower than its average speed a decade ago.
Back then, today’s hour-long journey would have taken 51 minutes. When the Guardian sent a reporter on the bus on a June morning, the bus was stationary for 40 out of the 108 minutes it took to reach Oxford Circus. This is a pattern seen across the UK capital. In the west, the 207 to White City is 14% slower than a decade ago, with an average speed of 7.4mph in 2025.
That’s slower than the average beginner cyclist. The 243 to Waterloo, connecting north London to the city centre, slowed down by 5%. One of the city’s most popular routes, these slower journeys were taken by 9.8 million passengers in 2025. These routes are three examples of wider, continuing trend across London – and indeed, other cities across the world.
Buses are slow, and they’re getting slower. Percentage change in average speed in 2025 versus 2015. This map shows how 578 of the 700 London bus routes have seen their average speed reduced in the last decade. 20% slower No change 20% faster Change in average speed between 2015–2025, for routes in continuous service for this period. Changes in route are not accounted for.
Experts warn that slower buses risk driving passengers away: research cited by Transport for London (TfL) suggests a 10% fall in speed leads to a 6% drop in demand.Passenger journeys in London have already fallen by more than 300m a year, or 16%, since 2013, despite the city’s population growing by almost a million people.The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, does not play down the issue. “We’re really concerned about bus usage. One of the reasons, when you speak to commuters, is a lack of reliability. And why is it they lack reliability? Because of bus speed.”A congested city, with ever more demands on road space, has left London facing difficult choices over which modes of transport to prioritise.
But when passengers turn away from slower buses, the service frequencies and even routes are liable to be cut.The fear is, as one industry figure puts it, “a vicious circle of decline”: slower buses; fewer passengers; and increasing pressure on services.Recent research has also pointed to this trend being recorded in other global cities such as Paris, Brussels, Lisbon and beyond. The growing wait for the London bus – in dataGuardian analysis of data from TfL, which runs London’s road and rail public transport network, reveals several indicators that the capital’s bus services have slowed, become truncated or less reliable. The Covid-19 pandemic had a sharp and obvious impact on the data, but there are clear downwards trends cutting through that period.Across the network as a whole, the average speed in 2025-26 stood at 9.18mph – the lowest speed since comparable records began in 2013-14, and a 4.8% drop over this period.Chart showing how bus speed has dropped from 9.6mph in 2013 to 9.2mph 2025, spiking to 10.1mph in 2020Bus timetables have long been adjusted to reflect London’s traffic. A snapshot of routes analysed by the economist Alexander Jan, a veteran of transport planning in the capital, found scheduled journey times are now, on average, 30% longer than they were 50 years ago.Yet even with that extra time built in, buses are increasingly failing to meet expectations.
Delays have worsened: on high-frequency routes – those running more than five buses an hour – passengers now wait 22% longer than expected, up from 18% in 2018.Chart showing how passengers are waiting at bus stops for longerIf unreliability is, as Khan argues, deterring passengers, the latest ridership figures are concerning.Last year saw the first fall in bus journeys since the post-pandemic recovery. Between 2010 and 2019, annual passenger numbers consistently exceeded 2 billion; in 2024, they fell to 1.8 billion.Chart showing how ridership has not recovered after Covid-19 and is falling againAt the same time, the size of London’s bus network has shrunk. Between 2010 and 2019, TfL buses travelled an average of 487m km (303m miles) a year. Over the past three years, that figure has fallen to about 460m.Chart showing how buses are covering less distanceAcross the network buses are slower, passenger numbers are falling, services cover fewer miles and waiting times are rising.Those slower journeys come with a financial cost.
Because drivers’ wages account for the largest share of operating costs, slower buses mean more vehicles and more staff are needed to provide the same level of service.According to analysis by the Confederation of Passenger Transport, making London’s buses 10% faster would bring in an extra £70m a year in fares and cut operating costs by £214m.Delays and cuts also hit the poorest in society, who are more likely to rely on buses for shift work, lower costs or lack of a car. In London, a bus into the centre costs less than half the peak tube fare, and housing costs increase with proximity to underground stations. A global trendLondon is far from the only city whose buses are slowing down.A 2026 report by the Transport Strategy Centre (TSC) at Imperial College London found a “persistent decline in bus speeds” in the past decade in 15 networks in Europe, Asia and North America.Chart showing how declining bus speed is a global problemLondon’s slowdown is modest compared with other cities: in Paris, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, bus travel is more than 10% slower than before the pandemic.Local factors vary, but the TSC report identifies a pattern: growing traffic and congestion and less space for buses, “diminished in part to the expansion of road space for cycling and walking”.In Barcelona, the redevelopment of Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes pushed traffic on to surrounding roads, at lower speed limits, with no priority for buses. Journey times rose by more than 25%.In New York, widening the protected cycle lane on Sixth Avenue reduced general traffic lanes from four to three; morning-peak bus speeds fell by 8% over the following year.When buses are fast and reliable, as the TSC report concludes, passengers “respond with increased use, strengthening the viability of the system; when speeds decline, ridership suffers, undermining sustainability goals”.
In other words, making buses better is, the TSC says, “a primary lever for achieving equitable, low-carbon, and resilient cities”. Why are London buses getting slower?In London, the persistent slowdown comes despite successive London mayors championing buses and bringing in better technology and vehicles. There was a great leap forward in bus performance in the early 2000s through Ken Livingstone’s congestion charge and investment in infrastructure such as GPS tracking, which massively improved reliability.Livingstone’s fleets of new bendy buses were phased out by his immediate successor, Boris Johnson, a self-professed enthusiast – even if his signature New Routemasters proved controversial.Since then Khan, famously the son of a bus driver, has brought in the Hopper fare, allowing multiple bus connections for the price of one journey, and is aiming for a fully electric bus fleet by 2030. Passengers
