The new guidance on bus service improvements, LTN 1/24, marks a significant shift towards a more comprehensive and passenger-centric approach to enhancing bus services on the road. The previous guidance LTN 1/97 is over 25 years old and much has changed, this new guidance acknowledges the evolving landscape of policies, strategies, legislation, and technology. The new document provides a valuable toolkit for planners and designers working on bus improvement projects taking on the latest best practice thinking.
Developed over nearly two years, the guidance has been informed by surveys with industry, engagement with authorities and others, and a literature review. Bus priority is redefined as bus user priority focusing on the passenger and their trip, as opposed to purely the vehicle. It builds upon lessons learned from previous decades and emphasises that bus user priority encompasses a range of objectives beyond just speed, including safety, accessibility, reliability, and efficiency. The definition clearly establishes that bus user priority is about a package of improvements.
A focus on door-to door journeys
The key design principles focus on the passenger journey from door to door. This means how they get to and from a bus stop, the bus stop and the waiting environment is as important as the time on the bus. If prospective passengers do not feel safe getting to or from a stop or waiting it does not matter how fast a bus is they will choose an alternative mode. Making bus travel an attractive choice is important if we want to get more people using buses and support net zero goals.
More broadly, the guidance emphasises the role of active travel in complementing public transport, rather than conflicting with it. It envisions bus stops evolving into mobility hubs that support access to various transportation modes, highlighting the importance of strategic placement and spacing of bus stops to optimise journey times and investment efficiency.
Importantly, the guidance highlights that bus improvements extend beyond just bus lanes, encompassing a range of measures categorised as direct, indirect, or complementary ranging from the obvious direct measures like bus or priority vehicle lanes and bus gates to including bus stop design, and measures such as kerbside controls and traffic signal priority. Technology and making traffic signals and other control systems working smarter and providing more support to bus movements is a key indirect improvement measure. Better kerbside management is also important.
Toolkit of holistic improvements
Identifying a broad more holistic range of improvement measures, the guidance provides a toolkit that can be applied across England not just in urban centres. The on-road aspects focuses on removing and addressing the factors that create delay and unreliability to buses. It also looks to the future with a potential increase in demand responsive services where not all routes are fixed. The aspiration is to create a journey whereby the bus moves in free flow conditions without impact from congestion or other delays.
The need for better use of technology and traffic signal control to identify buses wherever they are becomes more important with less fixed routes. Improving network management more broadly on our road network gives benefits not only to buses but to other modes. With this approach even where frequencies are low and space is limited something can be done to improve bus services.
Ultimately, beyond the attention-grabbing headlines about bus lane hours, LTN 1/24 should be recognised as a document that elevates the profile of buses and prioritises the needs of passengers. It offers a framework for enhancing bus services and fostering sustainable transportation choices across the country. Bus patronage is falling, and some services are being reduced across the country, so improving the infrastructure for passengers and buses is a key step in reversing this decline and supporting this important sustainable transport mode.