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Drop in passengers using buses across West Midlands sparks concern from councillors

A drop in the number of passengers using buses across the West Midlands has sparked concerns from councillors.

By Gurdip Thandi
Published

Dudley councillor David Stanley told members of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s Transport Delivery Overview and Scrutiny Committee that he was ‘disappointed’ with the data.

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A National Express West Midlands bus outside the Selfridges building in Birmingham. Credit: National Express.
A National Express West Midlands bus outside the Selfridges building in Birmingham. Credit: National Express.

He also said the soaring cost of fuel, as a result of the war in the Middle East, could pose a problem for bus operators.

Figures presented to the committee showed the number of bus boardings at Quarter Three (October to December) in 2025/26 stood at 59.99 million – a drop of 5.9 per cent from 63.74 million in the same period the previous year.

One of the main reasons attributed to the loss was the increase in the national bus fare cap, which resulted in an increase in single fares from £2 in December 2024 to £3 from January 2025.

Other data showed Midland Metro boardings suffered a slight decrease of 1.6 per cent with 2.45 million in Q3 of 2025/26 compared with 2.49 million the previous year.

But there was better news for rail usage with statistics showing 67.12 million boardings in 2025/26 – a 3.7 per cent increase on the 64.7 million recorded in 2024/25.

Councillor Stanley said: “I’m very disappointed to see the loss of patronage on the buses in particular.

“One of the things that does concern me is the state of things in the Middle East and with the extreme fuel price rises and cost of electricity.

“The operators are going to find it very difficult in the future to cope with this loss of passengers.

“We’ve seen a big increase from £2 to £3 for a single journey so it is a deterrent rather than an encouragement to use public transport.”

Steve Hayes, Head of Bus Franchising Transition at Transport for West Midlands said: “The cost of fuel will have an impact on operating costs and certainly as we move to bus franchising, it’s something we are very aware of and taking into account as we are planning.

“At the moment, we’ve got the network being supported by the grant funding and we are currently in negotiations around another round of that.”

He also discussed passenger incentive schemes in a bid to drive up more public transport usage.