London cannot afford a bus service slowdown

Road traffic congestion is damaging the capital's most important form of public transport with a variety of ill-effects

All over Britain, buses are slowing down. They're doing it in Brighton, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol and Hull and most of all they're doing it in London. Over the past year, speeds on a third of London's bus routes have fallen by more than 5%, reducing some of them to walking speed: route 11, which runs between Fulham Broadway and Liverpool Street station, averages just 4 mph in parts.

As a result, people are giving up on using buses. For ten years after the formation of Transport for London (TfL), the capital's bus service was a huge success. Only three years ago, demand for bus services was expected to keep on rising. Now, London is experiencing one of the fastest declines in bus use in the land. The implications for the city are profound.