Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2016 to Question 23952, what methods and data his Department has used to measure trends in bus punctuality since 2010.

Methods

Bus punctuality data are collected and managed by local authorities, and published by the Department for Transport in online statistical tables.

Bus punctuality data are based on roadside observational surveys, electronic data derived from Automatic Vehicle Location devices or a combination of the two. Local authorities are given guidance to make sure collection methods are consistent. The guidance for local authorities on collecting bus punctuality data was last updated in February 2010.

Not all local authorities collect bus punctuality data.

Data

The Department publishes two measures of bus punctuality for frequent and non-frequent bus services. A frequent service is one that has six or more buses per hour.

For frequent services, statistics by local authority are available in table BUS0903, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/463885/bus0903.xls. This measure represents the excess waiting time arising from irregular gaps between services.

The proportion of non-frequent bus services in England running on-time is published in table BUS0902, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/463884/bus0902.xls. The latest statistics show that in 2014/15, 83% of non-frequent services ran on-time compared with 80% in 2009/10. ‘On-time’ is defined as one between 1 minute early and 5 minutes 59 seconds late.