How well does public transport understand its existing and potential customers, and the societal trends that influence them?
There has been a greater post-Covid recovery in women travelling by bus than men
“Time is the most precious resource any of us has,” Marc Winsland remarked in his excellent article in the last edition of this mag. It was very apt as, for the first time in living memory, I had to declare a ‘void day’ and was unable to pen a piece – a combo of being numbed with shock at Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup (I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, have I?), a relentless work schedule and domestic challenges, have meant that right now, I’m getting less sleep than Maggie Thatcher in her prime. Every minute had to be allocated with precision and efficiency; something had to give, even if it was this privileged position of entertaining you lot.
I did, though, spare myself some bath time reading, and it was soothing to read the magazine without fear of a typo having slipped into my column or inadvertently, in post-cup final jubilation, making a risqué career-shattering comment capable of getting me cancelled. So, I sat back in the bathtub, soaking the sumptuous journalism of Chris Cheek and Marc Winsland, with their brilliant, thought-provoking articles. Two great writers at opposite ends of the age scale (with respect to Chris!), but co-joined by insightful views on how to get bums on board buses.
Both missives stressed, in their own ways, the overriding importance of focusing on market trends and consumer behaviours. Cheeky Boy suggested that being close to market needs is more important than industry structure, whilst Marc contested that it was self-defeating for the bus sector to reduce frequency and mileage per se and expect patronage to grow. That age-old discussion, of course, but his approach and take-on it was refreshing and data-driven, citing instances of patronage outstripping declining supply in a few places, leading to a less costly service to operate but bereft of the kind of spaciousness achieved by more frequent services and bigger vehicles.
Winsland illustrates that patronage has made a comeback in several places, reinforced somewhat by Cheek’s analysis of bus usage. However, on my mystery travels in recent times, many buses I’ve boarded have had barely a handful of folk onboard, and this creates dreadful optics from a marketing perspective, so too once thronging bus stations standing desolate, alongside boarded-up shops and a smattering of chavs effing and blinding, whilst vaping on street-corners.
It’s a similar plight that besets a restaurant with empty tables visible when peering through the windows whilst looking for somewhere to eat. Any marketing message is immediately destroyed, sending a message that bus travel is on death row.
Whilst I fear the off-putting sight of bulky empty buses, Marc Winsland’s article is fascinating. Frequency, particularly for today’s generation, is really important. At what point does a brand or product become insignificant because it is so peripheral and superficial? Today’s youngsters are more obsessed with brands than those who came before them. If a sporting team only plays a handful of games a season, or your favourite pop artist releases less than a couple of hits a year – there’s no cadence or narrative created to compel customers. Momentum is everything. Look out onto the main road and see a bus on the landscape as the exception than the norm and it’s difficult to have any confidence in the strength of the brand or even if it exists credibly at all.
Understanding the ebbs, flows and intricacies of market fads and fashions are more important than anything
Remember too, FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – which compels customers to purchase a product because everyone else seems to be doing so, even if the proposition might be not too stellar. It makes me titter how ‘Er Indoors insists we go to The Ivy or some other poncy restaurant, and she takes photos of tiny portions of egg, beans and tomatoes for breakfast, posting them on Facebook, and everyone comments how lovely it all looks. Yet, there are only so many ways you can skin an English brekkie, and the reality is we could go to Co-Op and, for a smidgen of the price, rustle up the same meal. A busy and frequent bus, wrapped in lovely brand imagery and packed to the rafters, creates the same FOMO factor for onlookers as they see it on the streets, in much the same way as Mrs Warner drags me to one of these posh eateries, just because everyone else is doing so.
Understanding the ebbs, flows and intricacies of market fads and fashions are more important than anything when it comes to planning and delivering a successful national and local bus proposition. This isn’t an easy task either, markets are volatile, nuanced and don’t follow a simple trajectory that is all about technology and modernisation. Last week, I wrote a project plan to implement polaroid cameras for customers to print snaps of them with drivers on a sightseeing bus trip, hot on the heels of my kids telling me how this was all the rage these days, just as their generation loves the authenticity of vinyl records and turntables. Who would have predicted this? So too, my favourite county cricket team, Surrey, enjoyed in successive weeks record crowds this century for four-day games, with much of the crowd being 20-something males and females – bucking the theory that the youth of today haven’t got the patience or inclination to sit and watch cricket’s long form.
Societal changes make a mockery of any belief by self-important industry bigwigs that their game-changing structural changes are pivotal. They would be better off scrolling through their social media feeds and considering if each story that appears may have a relevance, in some shape or form, on future demand for bus travel. One surf through my phone whilst writing this article, tells me that polyamorous relationships may be the future, migration is on the rise, people are dialling 111 rather than trying to book appointments at their GP, nightclubs continue to close at an alarming rate and shoplifting offences reached an unprecedented 500,000 in 2024 with the future of Oxford Street in London ‘at risk’ due to high crime levels according to retail group ‘High Streets UK’. In varying degrees, all of these stories will have some kind of influence in bus travel usage, yet how many bus company bigwigs are scrutinising the everyday behaviour, fads and fashions of fellow-folk, scouring news articles that give a glimmer of insight around current and future penchants and trying to relate them to how they can capitalise on them or deal with potential threats? In many respects, a degree in sociology, rather than transport planning is more the qualification of choice for any aspiring bus industry manager in the future.
It amazes me how rarely you hear those in the sector animatedly discussing societal patterns
Furtively studying and predicting market trends is crucial, yet it amazes me how rarely you hear those in the sector discussing societal patterns animatedly. Conferences, seminars and networking events are in decline, and where they do take place, they tend to focus more on operational and regulatory matters or diversity, inclusion and environmental topics. All important, but where’s the spikey and lively debate around society’s odd and unpredictable foibles that ultimately, whether we like it or not, impact on demand and the future viability of bus travel? The bus industry, in my view, has a more collegiate and eccentric feel to it than other sectors, as this tends to naturally spawn more animated discussions around interesting issues. The coffee shop and pub are a good place to debate and share experiences and challenges, something that is still alive in bus. However, the more the owning groups try and crush the personality out of the sector, recruiting and developing corporate ‘yes folk’ who just spew out pre-rehearsed Gareth Southgate-style soundbites and fawn over those introverts who don’t have opinions, personality or the ability to think themselves or sniff out market quirks and gossip, the greater the risk we will have of the industry in its quest for compliant uniformity of missing vital intelligence around current and future markets.
Winsland’s suggestion of a ‘build it and they will come’ approach is laudable, but do you genuinely believe a combo of franchising and risk-averse, cost-cutting obsessed corporate cloning of their local subsidiaries, is going to have the bold ambition and commercial nous to make it happen? And what’s more, can those trendsetting ‘C-Suite’ central marketers from outside the sector with their open-neck tops and brown chinos face up to the fact that their job doesn’t fit the glitzy narrative and personal brand they’d like to convince themselves and others it does, but in fact is all about understanding and marketing a thread-bare, poorly invested proposition patronised by socially blighted folk in acutely deprived places. I know bus marketers who are waiting for a better offer to come up because they are unable to come to terms with the unedifying nature of both the product and markets they are promoting to.
Chris Cheek’s analysis shows that there has been a greater post-Covid recovery in women travelling than men and that blokes make fewer trips than females, with the gap widening with age. But why? I bet the industry has no answer for this nor even considered doing any research to have the slightest clue. It could be we’re onto something with women – should we be trying to get more of them on-board, maybe, in true stereotypical form (apologies), hang round the Women’s Institute, NCT Class or advertise on Mums.net? Are we talking to lone females about how they feel travelling on buses at night or spending time in different ethnic communities understanding cultural barriers and perceptions that might be constraining bus travel among females of a particular background, but being successfully unlocked elsewhere and experiencing growth? Without any real data-led insight or strategy, I suspect we’re left to anecdote, subjective speculation, such as my theory that blokes are more loyal to their wretched cars, seeing it as a macho source of power, pride and a status symbol, and don’t like going on buses and having to socialise with other minions, whereas women are more open-minded, sociable, chatty and less hung up on this nonsense. I’m probably talking piffle, but the point is that recognising and prioritising the kind of stats that Cheeky Boy has made is really important – more so than a lot of the other day job activities of a bus company bod that are seen as key.
So too, Cheek tells the tale of old-timers travelling less and less, alongside growth in those going about their ‘personal business’ and also business travel, with small increases in commuting and shopping trips. All of these categories are down, though, on figures for 2010 – 367 million fewer shopping related trips since this period (representing 61.7% of the total 595 million passenger journeys lost). The loss of visits to the shops is unsurprising given the rise in online retail, but how many of the stats that he cites is the industry able to give answers to – such is its reticence to embrace or invest brainpower to get under the pores of societal trends? And yet, as Chris suggests, those who think that the industry’s problems will be changing the regulatory system need to take a hard look at his figures regarding consumer behaviours and ask how much a different regulatory system would have changed the outcome. Time is the most precious commodity we have, but it’s just a shame so few bother to spend even a minute or two to look at how existing and potential customers are going about their lives, when they’re not celebrating Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup, of course.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alex Warner has over 30 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector. He is co-founder of transport technology business Lost Group and transport consultancy AJW Experience Group (which includes Great Scenic Journeys). He is also chair of West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
Do we have our fingers on the pulse?
by Passenger Transport on Jun 13, 2025 • 1:15 pm No CommentsHow well does public transport understand its existing and potential customers, and the societal trends that influence them?
“Time is the most precious resource any of us has,” Marc Winsland remarked in his excellent article in the last edition of this mag. It was very apt as, for the first time in living memory, I had to declare a ‘void day’ and was unable to pen a piece – a combo of being numbed with shock at Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup (I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, have I?), a relentless work schedule and domestic challenges, have meant that right now, I’m getting less sleep than Maggie Thatcher in her prime. Every minute had to be allocated with precision and efficiency; something had to give, even if it was this privileged position of entertaining you lot.
I did, though, spare myself some bath time reading, and it was soothing to read the magazine without fear of a typo having slipped into my column or inadvertently, in post-cup final jubilation, making a risqué career-shattering comment capable of getting me cancelled. So, I sat back in the bathtub, soaking the sumptuous journalism of Chris Cheek and Marc Winsland, with their brilliant, thought-provoking articles. Two great writers at opposite ends of the age scale (with respect to Chris!), but co-joined by insightful views on how to get bums on board buses.
Both missives stressed, in their own ways, the overriding importance of focusing on market trends and consumer behaviours. Cheeky Boy suggested that being close to market needs is more important than industry structure, whilst Marc contested that it was self-defeating for the bus sector to reduce frequency and mileage per se and expect patronage to grow. That age-old discussion, of course, but his approach and take-on it was refreshing and data-driven, citing instances of patronage outstripping declining supply in a few places, leading to a less costly service to operate but bereft of the kind of spaciousness achieved by more frequent services and bigger vehicles.
Winsland illustrates that patronage has made a comeback in several places, reinforced somewhat by Cheek’s analysis of bus usage. However, on my mystery travels in recent times, many buses I’ve boarded have had barely a handful of folk onboard, and this creates dreadful optics from a marketing perspective, so too once thronging bus stations standing desolate, alongside boarded-up shops and a smattering of chavs effing and blinding, whilst vaping on street-corners.
It’s a similar plight that besets a restaurant with empty tables visible when peering through the windows whilst looking for somewhere to eat. Any marketing message is immediately destroyed, sending a message that bus travel is on death row.
Whilst I fear the off-putting sight of bulky empty buses, Marc Winsland’s article is fascinating. Frequency, particularly for today’s generation, is really important. At what point does a brand or product become insignificant because it is so peripheral and superficial? Today’s youngsters are more obsessed with brands than those who came before them. If a sporting team only plays a handful of games a season, or your favourite pop artist releases less than a couple of hits a year – there’s no cadence or narrative created to compel customers. Momentum is everything. Look out onto the main road and see a bus on the landscape as the exception than the norm and it’s difficult to have any confidence in the strength of the brand or even if it exists credibly at all.
Remember too, FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – which compels customers to purchase a product because everyone else seems to be doing so, even if the proposition might be not too stellar. It makes me titter how ‘Er Indoors insists we go to The Ivy or some other poncy restaurant, and she takes photos of tiny portions of egg, beans and tomatoes for breakfast, posting them on Facebook, and everyone comments how lovely it all looks. Yet, there are only so many ways you can skin an English brekkie, and the reality is we could go to Co-Op and, for a smidgen of the price, rustle up the same meal. A busy and frequent bus, wrapped in lovely brand imagery and packed to the rafters, creates the same FOMO factor for onlookers as they see it on the streets, in much the same way as Mrs Warner drags me to one of these posh eateries, just because everyone else is doing so.
Understanding the ebbs, flows and intricacies of market fads and fashions are more important than anything when it comes to planning and delivering a successful national and local bus proposition. This isn’t an easy task either, markets are volatile, nuanced and don’t follow a simple trajectory that is all about technology and modernisation. Last week, I wrote a project plan to implement polaroid cameras for customers to print snaps of them with drivers on a sightseeing bus trip, hot on the heels of my kids telling me how this was all the rage these days, just as their generation loves the authenticity of vinyl records and turntables. Who would have predicted this? So too, my favourite county cricket team, Surrey, enjoyed in successive weeks record crowds this century for four-day games, with much of the crowd being 20-something males and females – bucking the theory that the youth of today haven’t got the patience or inclination to sit and watch cricket’s long form.
Societal changes make a mockery of any belief by self-important industry bigwigs that their game-changing structural changes are pivotal. They would be better off scrolling through their social media feeds and considering if each story that appears may have a relevance, in some shape or form, on future demand for bus travel. One surf through my phone whilst writing this article, tells me that polyamorous relationships may be the future, migration is on the rise, people are dialling 111 rather than trying to book appointments at their GP, nightclubs continue to close at an alarming rate and shoplifting offences reached an unprecedented 500,000 in 2024 with the future of Oxford Street in London ‘at risk’ due to high crime levels according to retail group ‘High Streets UK’. In varying degrees, all of these stories will have some kind of influence in bus travel usage, yet how many bus company bigwigs are scrutinising the everyday behaviour, fads and fashions of fellow-folk, scouring news articles that give a glimmer of insight around current and future penchants and trying to relate them to how they can capitalise on them or deal with potential threats? In many respects, a degree in sociology, rather than transport planning is more the qualification of choice for any aspiring bus industry manager in the future.
Furtively studying and predicting market trends is crucial, yet it amazes me how rarely you hear those in the sector discussing societal patterns animatedly. Conferences, seminars and networking events are in decline, and where they do take place, they tend to focus more on operational and regulatory matters or diversity, inclusion and environmental topics. All important, but where’s the spikey and lively debate around society’s odd and unpredictable foibles that ultimately, whether we like it or not, impact on demand and the future viability of bus travel? The bus industry, in my view, has a more collegiate and eccentric feel to it than other sectors, as this tends to naturally spawn more animated discussions around interesting issues. The coffee shop and pub are a good place to debate and share experiences and challenges, something that is still alive in bus. However, the more the owning groups try and crush the personality out of the sector, recruiting and developing corporate ‘yes folk’ who just spew out pre-rehearsed Gareth Southgate-style soundbites and fawn over those introverts who don’t have opinions, personality or the ability to think themselves or sniff out market quirks and gossip, the greater the risk we will have of the industry in its quest for compliant uniformity of missing vital intelligence around current and future markets.
Winsland’s suggestion of a ‘build it and they will come’ approach is laudable, but do you genuinely believe a combo of franchising and risk-averse, cost-cutting obsessed corporate cloning of their local subsidiaries, is going to have the bold ambition and commercial nous to make it happen? And what’s more, can those trendsetting ‘C-Suite’ central marketers from outside the sector with their open-neck tops and brown chinos face up to the fact that their job doesn’t fit the glitzy narrative and personal brand they’d like to convince themselves and others it does, but in fact is all about understanding and marketing a thread-bare, poorly invested proposition patronised by socially blighted folk in acutely deprived places. I know bus marketers who are waiting for a better offer to come up because they are unable to come to terms with the unedifying nature of both the product and markets they are promoting to.
Chris Cheek’s analysis shows that there has been a greater post-Covid recovery in women travelling than men and that blokes make fewer trips than females, with the gap widening with age. But why? I bet the industry has no answer for this nor even considered doing any research to have the slightest clue. It could be we’re onto something with women – should we be trying to get more of them on-board, maybe, in true stereotypical form (apologies), hang round the Women’s Institute, NCT Class or advertise on Mums.net? Are we talking to lone females about how they feel travelling on buses at night or spending time in different ethnic communities understanding cultural barriers and perceptions that might be constraining bus travel among females of a particular background, but being successfully unlocked elsewhere and experiencing growth? Without any real data-led insight or strategy, I suspect we’re left to anecdote, subjective speculation, such as my theory that blokes are more loyal to their wretched cars, seeing it as a macho source of power, pride and a status symbol, and don’t like going on buses and having to socialise with other minions, whereas women are more open-minded, sociable, chatty and less hung up on this nonsense. I’m probably talking piffle, but the point is that recognising and prioritising the kind of stats that Cheeky Boy has made is really important – more so than a lot of the other day job activities of a bus company bod that are seen as key.
So too, Cheek tells the tale of old-timers travelling less and less, alongside growth in those going about their ‘personal business’ and also business travel, with small increases in commuting and shopping trips. All of these categories are down, though, on figures for 2010 – 367 million fewer shopping related trips since this period (representing 61.7% of the total 595 million passenger journeys lost). The loss of visits to the shops is unsurprising given the rise in online retail, but how many of the stats that he cites is the industry able to give answers to – such is its reticence to embrace or invest brainpower to get under the pores of societal trends? And yet, as Chris suggests, those who think that the industry’s problems will be changing the regulatory system need to take a hard look at his figures regarding consumer behaviours and ask how much a different regulatory system would have changed the outcome. Time is the most precious commodity we have, but it’s just a shame so few bother to spend even a minute or two to look at how existing and potential customers are going about their lives, when they’re not celebrating Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup, of course.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alex Warner has over 30 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector. He is co-founder of transport technology business Lost Group and transport consultancy AJW Experience Group (which includes Great Scenic Journeys). He is also chair of West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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