Over the same period, passenger journeys in England outside London declined by 0.8%, continuing the decline since 2008/09, and is now 1.2% lower than in the year ending March 2005.
In London, which accounts for around half of passenger journeys, bus use decreased by 2.3% in the latest year, but remained 12.4% higher than in the year ending March 2007. This is the third consecutive year in which passenger journeys in London have fallen. Transport for London attributes increased congestion and road works as likely factors that have affected bus performance including bus speeds. Before 2012/13, bus use in London increased every year since 1998/99, according to the report.
Bus use fell in the early 1990s before starting to increase but has remained relatively stable since 2007/08 at over 4.4 billion passenger journeys, it says.
Bus mileage in England decreased by 1.1% when compared with 2015/16, largely due to a 13.8% decrease in mileage on local authority supported services in England outside London. England passenger journeys peaked in 2008/9 at more than 2.4 billion, and have generally declined since then, it says.
Local bus passenger journeys decreased in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in 2016/17. In metropolitan areas, there were 0.94 billion passenger journeys, a decrease of 1.2% compared with 2015/16. In non-metropolitan areas, there were 1.26 billion passenger journeys, a decrease of 0.4%, it says.
In 2016/17, local bus accounted for 59% of all public transport journeys in Great Britain. This has fallen from 74% in 1991/92. This change has been driven by large increases in patronage on the National Rail network, London Underground and light rail and modern tram systems. Household car ownership remains high and is likely to have contributed to falling bus patronage, it says.
The number of buses used by local bus operators in England has remained at similar levels since 2004/05 at around 35,000 buses. Over a quarter of buses were in London. The average age of a bus in England in 2016/17 was 7.6 years, it says.
In 2016/17, the total estimated operating revenue for local bus services in England was £5.54 billion. Passenger fare receipts made up the largest proportion of operating revenue: £3.22 billion or 58% of operating revenue. Revenue from passenger receipts has increased on average each year by 0.8% in real terms between 2004/05 and 2016/17, it says.
The Labour Force Survey estimated that there were 104,000 bus and coach drivers in England during 2016/17, 2% lower than ten years ago. Of those, 91% were male, it says.
Most of the statistics were derived from a DfT annual public service vehicle survey of more than 500 local bus operators.