Busiest London bus routes revealed as TfL announces major shake-up
A lot of us have been avoiding the bus in recent months. Millions of us.
Transport for London (TfL)’s latest bus usage data has revealed the tragic extent of how ridership has collapsed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
London’s busiest bus route, the 18, has still kept its crown despite its passenger figures tumbling by 9,634,679 in just one year. If each one of those lost passengers paid the £1.55 Hopper fare, the loss on just that one bus route alone in fares revenue is £14.9million.
Just over six million people (6,093,490) rode the key North West London link in the 2020/2021 financial year, down from over 15 million (15,728,169) the previous year, a dramatic decline of 61.5 per cent.
The top 10 busiest routes for the 2020/2021 financial year were:
| 1st | 18 (Sudbury-Euston) | 6.09million |
| 2nd | 149 (Edmonton Green-London Bridge) | 6.05million |
| 3rd | 29 (Wood Green-Trafalgar Square) | 5.3million |
| 4th | 279 (Waltham Cross-Manor House) | 5.09million |
| 5th | 5 (Romford-Canning Town) | 5.07million |
| 6th | 86 (Romford-Stratford) | 4.96million |
| 7th | 25 (Ilford-City Thameslink) | 4.94million |
| 8th | 207 (Hayes By Pass-White City) | 4.87million |
| 9th | 109 (Croydon-Brixton) | 4.57million |
| 10th | 36 (New Cross Gate-Queen’s Park) | 4.55million |
The bottom 10 least busy/quietest routes were:
| 10th | 385 (Crooked Billet Sainsbury’s-Chingford) | 16196 |
| 9th | 347 (Romford-Ockendon) | 14145 |
| 8th | 213 night service (Sutton-Kingston) | 12222 |
| 7th* | R5* (Orpington circular, alongside R10) | 9462 |
| 6th* | W10* (Crews Hill-Enfield) | 9066 |
| 5th | H3 (Golders Green-East Finchley) | 9017 |
| 4th* | R10* (Orpington circular, alongside R5) | 8858 |
| 3rd* | 456* (Crews Hill-North Middlesex Hospital) | 5627 |
| 2nd | 389 (Barnet-Western Way) | 5260 |
| 1st | 399 (Barnet-Hadley Wood) | 4507 |
*Route W10 was renumbered 456 and extended to North Middlesex Hospital. Routes R5 and R10 run both ways around a circular route.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/busiest-london-bus-routes-revealed-21563923