ABOVE: Summing up the problems with today's London Bus network, this is Transport UK LT 634 (LTZ 1634), a Wright New Routemaster, passing along Victoria Street, in central London (near St James's Park Station), in the twilight of Thursday 19 February 2026. It is working route 24 from Pimlico to Hampstead Heath - not that you would know from the blank destination blind! Missing blinds are a common sight on the streets of London today.
Reimagining London's Bus Network
21 February 2026
ABOVE: From Vocabulary.com
Transport for London (TfL) has published its Business Plan to 2029/30. The Plan talks about "reimagining" the London bus network.
Things have certainly gone wrong in recent years. As the focus on tightening budgets continued, TfL lost whatever customer focus it once had. The result is a network in decline.
Some might say "managed" decline, but that would be generous. Piecemeal changes are made as contracts come up for renewal, tinkering around the edges via the path of least difficulty. The result, as changes are made and cuts are implemented, is a more-and-more disjointed operation that has lost touch with its diminishing band of customers.
So what could this "reimagining" do to get things back where they should be?
ABOVE: On the morning of Friday 12 September 2025, as a week-long tube strike is drawing to a close, Arriva London EE10 (SK25 BBU), an ADL Enviro400 EV, turns into Bayliss Road, near Lambeth North, on Superloop route SL6. The batch of buses for this route are probably the least-used in London, with most just covering a couple of round trips per day (half of which will be out of service), on Mondays to Fridays only (see BusesTopDeck.co.uk/222).
A Tuesday evening rush hour in January, and I have just arrived at the Bus Station at Heathrow Terminal Five. Standing underneath a huge car park adjacent to the Terminal building, there is no natural light. Never mind; it's been dark for a couple of hours already anyway.
I am finishing off a comprehensive day out on the buses with a ride on the 350 TfL service to Hayes (Middlesex). The bus arrives on time, at 18:25, and a select group board the Transport UK ADL Enviro200 MMC. We set off, and, as Terminal Five is on the edge of the airport, we are very quickly onto the main roads beyond, and I am heading briskly towards Hayes & Harlington station - just one stop short of the Asda store where the service terminates. It will take about 41 minutes.
Well that's the plan anyway. One stop into the journey comes an announcement from the automated system:
"The destination of this service has changed. Please listen for further announcements."
The bus is now terminating at Stockley Park, a couple of miles short of Hayes. If I want to get to Hayes I will now have to wait for the next bus on this service, which will trundle along 20 minutes later - hopefully. In the end, I bail out at West Drayton station and catch the train - bagging a little extra revenue for TfL in the process.
This is not an isolated incident on TfL buses. It happens every day. Many times, probably. The convention in London is that, if a bus needs to be terminated short of its intended destination, for whatever reason, passengers will just be turfed off and left to fend for themselves.
Yes, left to fend for themselves, because the bus driver's responsibility does not seem to extend towards ensuring that passengers are transferred to another bus to complete the journey they have already paid for. Passengers are deposited at a bus stop - not even necessarily one where buses on that route stop (see the SL9 section of my most recent Superloop article) - and left to their own devices.
The annoying thing is that this particular 350 wasn't even running late. But it was due a driver change at Stockley Park, so I wonder if the replacement driver wasn't available? But surely that should have been anticipated before the bus started out from Heathrow? Whatever the reason (and no explanation is ever given), I boarded a bus that was supposed to take me to where I wanted to go, but actually would have dropped me off two miles short, and it would have been my problem.
Perhaps a reimagined network could find another way to manage unplanned short turns, such as not allowing them to be implemented if the bus is already on its journey?
ABOVE: On the morning of Sunday 30 November 2025, London General Ee 167 (LG23 EZM), a BYD D8UR-DD ADL Enviro400EV, is turning short of Kingston Town Centre whilst working route 213. Whether it set out from Sutton like that or got turned short along the way is not on record.
It's the second Sunday of Advent - 7 December 2025 - and I am out with friends in central London to look at the Christmas Lights from the best angle possible - the top of a bus. We're waiting at Waterloo, at circa 17:00, for a 139 bus to Baker Street, as this covers Trafalgar Square, Regent Street and most of the western half of Oxford Street. There's one due in eight minutes according to the Countdown sign.
But it doesn't turn up. And nearly half an hour later, there still hasn't been a 139, and there isn't one listed. We have to change our plans and catch a 59 up to Holborn, to join the 98 which will take us along Oxford Street to Edgware Road. By the time we get to Marble Arch, the bus is rammed. We have to fight our way to the exit doors at Edgware Road because there are so many people on board. There's another 98 behind and that's rammed as well.
We head by tube to Baker Street and board a 139 heading for Waterloo - approaching from the opposite end, as it were. This bus starts to get busy as it approaches Oxford Street, and we then hear the familiar message:
"The destination of this service has changed. Please listen for further announcements."
The bus is now terminating at Piccadilly Circus. By the time we get into Regent Street, the bus is completely rammed. There are even people standing on the top deck.
As we head downstairs to alight at Hamley's Toy Store (as it's now quicker to walk), people are pushing on through the exit door as we try to leave. The driver appears to have condoned this, as it's probably easier than asking people to move down the bus, but there's no way they will be able to pay their fares that way.
The bus heads down the road, very heavily loaded. Many of the passengers probably don't realise that they are about to be dumped at the roadside, left to find another way to Waterloo.
ABOVE: VMH 2442 (LK18 AFY), a Volvo B5LH MCV EvoSeti, in Regent Street, with a very heavy load, on a route 139 service that was going to Waterloo but is now being turned short at Piccadilly Circus. It is Sunday 7 December 2025.
The following Sunday, I am watching the 139 service collapsing again between Piccadilly Circus and Waterloo, this time at home via BusTimes.org (such are the wonders of modern technology). Whilst overall, there are plenty of buses out, the controllers appear to have abandoned the southern section of the route entirely:
ABOVE: A screenshot from BusTimes.org shows the position of each bus on route 139, whilst the individual circles represent bus stops. Note the complete lack of buses in the south, as controllers prioritise one end of the route.
The week after that, there are four in a row heading in the same direction in Oxford Street:
ABOVE from BusTimes.org
OK, it is the build-up to Christmas and the West End is busy, but surely it could have been anticipated that it was going to be busier and slower than normal? Maybe it needed a special timetable?
Perhaps a reimagined network could anticipate and respond to events that are going to cause delays and crowding? A more frequent service for the shopping crowds, with extra running time? Or maybe Sunday Service is always like this in the West End?
ABOVE: Brand-new Go-Ahead London DEL 82 (LX75 ZGM), a Wright Streetdeck Electroliner, has only been in service for four days when seen in Regent Street, approaching Oxford Circus, on Friday 20 February 2026. It is heading for Putney Common on route 22. An ADL Envro400H follows on route 88 (Parliament Hill Fields to Clapham Common)
I board a bus on route 207 in Ealing, heading for Southall. Behind me, someone boards the bus and says to the driver:
"I've lost my pass. I'm only going a couple of stops. Is that alright?"
The driver nods them through. They go upstairs and are still there half an hour later, when the bus reaches Southall.
These fare dodgers know that there is very little chance of them being caught travelling without a valid ticket, because there are so few inspectors around. I actually had my ticket checked a week ago, but that's the first time in London in at least two years.
It could be any route in London. It's a common sight.
I once saw two youngsters boarding an 83 in Wembley. This was in the days before touch-on tickets so they just had to show a valid ticket to the driver. The first one boarded, ran upstairs and dropped his ticket down to his friend, still on the street, so that he could board using the same ticket.
It became slightly more tricky than they had expected, though. As the first boy dropped the ticket down, the driver pulled out from the stop. The second boy literally had to chase the bus down the road and around the corner to the next stop to board. Luckily for him the bus got caught at the lights!
Gone are the days when people had to be sneaky - boarding by the back door of a bus or distracting a staff member whilst a friend crept past. Now you just brazen it out.
Of course, people walk through the barriers at stations on the TfL network all the time - sometimes tailgating, sometimes following someone through the wide gate and sometimes just pushing though the wide gate. They are never challenged. At Southall station (Elizabeth Line), the wide gate is now often left open (why?), so there's no need to even force one's way through.
I believe that revenue loss through fare evasion is woefully under-estimated by TfL. When you can walk onto a bus or a train without a ticket, unchallenged and with little fear of repercussions, and you're not totally honest, why wouldn't you? This may be why TfL says buses aren't being used, when many are rammed. Because of course, no ticket means no record of the person on the bus.
Perhaps a reimagined network could take a tougher line on fare evasion. Hire a lot more inspectors, body-worn cameras, and appropriate back-up if needed, to catch and prosecute these people. It would pay for itself.
The old route 507 from Victoria to Waterloo was very well-used. Pre-pandemic buses were running 18 times an hour in the peaks and they were always busy. After the pandemic, as travel habits changed, things settled down to an eight times per hour service and buses were still busy.
Then the 507 got axed. It was replaced at the Victoria end by a diversion of route 3. But the people who used to use the 507 didn't transfer to the 3. Buses, running every 10 minutes, carried just a few people out of Victoria even in the rush hour. The 3 has recently been reduced to every 12 minutes. Where have all the customers who used to use the 507 gone?
ABOVE: Friday 28 April 2023 was the last day of route 507. In Horseferry Road that lunchtime is London General SEe 14 (LJ66 CFN), a BYD D9UR ADL Enviro200EV, heading for Victoria.
A colleague of mine is about to move to a new posting based in Waterloo, but he commutes on Southeastern into Victoria. He thinks that the simplest way to get to his new office will be to catch a train from Victoria to Clapham Junction, and double-back to Waterloo (really!). He doesn't want to contemplate using a bus now that the 507 has gone.
Perhaps a reimagined network could consider where people actually want to go, and shape the network to match this? And perhaps a reimagined network could stop cutting buses because the number of people using them drops, when the drops are because the services are less attractive than they used to be?
Perhaps a reimagined network could start to go for growth again, instead of throwing in the towel and assuming that the passengers have gone for good?
Perhaps a reimagined network could improve its information provision - I could do a whole article on that...?
I don't want words. I just want to see buses that are not completely rammed, where everyone has paid their fare, where the stated destination when I board is not changed en route, and where the automatic response to a half-empty bus is not to cut the service ("over-bussed" is a popular TfL phrase).
I want the advertised service to be delivered. Consistently.
I want a lot, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable. They seem to manage well enough in most other parts of the country. Some bus routes turn a profit.
But can the people currently in charge revitalise and grow the network? Can a reimagined network recapture the lost pride that used to be a part of the old London Transport?
I'm not holding my breath...