Faster buses in Wales would encourage 1 in 3 to travel more often

Slow buses are deterring people from using public transport in Wales, according to new polling for the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT Cymru).

The Wales-wide poll found that a third of respondents (32%) would use public transport more often if journey times by bus were faster.

Younger people are particularly keen to get to their destinations quickly, with 51% of those aged under 30 saying they would use buses more if they were speedier.

In its bus and coach manifesto for the upcoming Senedd elections, CPT Cymru has laid down a challenge to political parties of improving bus journey times by 10% – which would see the average speed of a Welsh bus reach 13.6mph.

An improvement could be achieved through extra bus lanes in urban and inter-urban corridors, by giving buses priority at traffic lights and through better co-ordination of roadworks, which often slow down public transport.

The poll of 1,000 people in Wales by Findoutnow found that Conservative voters at the last General Election are most likely to be regular bus users, with 22% using them multiple times per month.

Among Plaid Cymru voters, 21% use buses regularly, followed by 17% of Labour voters. Reform UK voters are the least frequent bus users, with 62% saying they ‘never’ travel by bus and only 15% using buses regularly.

Graham Vidler, Chief Executive of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, said: “There’s a great deal of pent up demand in Wales for public transport. Large parts of the country have good bus services, but too often they’re hampered by slow speeds.

“People are ready and willing to catch the bus and would do so in larger numbers if we could simply speed up journeys by giving public transport more priority on the roads.

“This isn’t rocket science – if the next Welsh government were to back more bus lanes, priority at traffic lights and better co-ordination of roadworks, we could get millions more journeys onto buses. That would cut the number of cars on the road and generate fare revenue to invest in more frequent services.”

Other measures that would encourage people to catch the bus more often include cheaper bus fares (cited by 38% of people), more frequent services (43%), a wider range of routes locally (47%) and more reliability (39%).

CPT Cymru’s manifesto sets out five steps to enhancing bus and coach travel:

• A five year funding settlement to provide certainty to operators, and a commitment to double capital investment in buses to support the purchaser of low emission vehicles and bus priority measures
• Targeted measures to keep bus fares low when the present under 21s bus fare scheme ends
• A commitment to undertake a ‘value for money’ assessment in each region of Wales before franchising is rolled out
• A national and local target to increase bus speeds by 10% by the end of the next Senedd term
• Requiring all local authorities to consider appropriate drop-off, pick up and parking facilities to coach tourists

The Confederation of Passenger Transport is a UK-wide trade association that represents operators of buses and coaches.

The CPT Cymru manifesto is available to read in full here.