Does London have/need a core bus network?

[Magrar]

In ~40 years as a distant observer, I've never really got the impression London either has or wants a core network of bus routes.

Go to any other town or city, and it's obvious which routes they consider core. They're either branded or otherwise of a much higher frequency than the rest.

London has SuperLoop, but surely the point of a core bus network is it's utilitity to a central interchange/s.

London has different geography, sure, a certain mind numbing expanse. But it still has an identifiable core and key terminals.

Has the (if this is even the case) the desire to ensure every single inner London bus route has a high frequency, undermined the rapid/efficient movement of bus passengers, creating as it perhaps has, a conflicting set of vehicle movements in an already complex/congested road network?

A general walking pace crawl of inner London traffic, of which buses on a variety of routes must form a significant part.

Or indeed, have efforts at simplification/trunking of the inner London network lost the key advantage of inner London's road network to bus travel?

 

[Farigiraf]

Has the (if this is even the case) the desire to ensure every single inner London bus route has a high frequency, undermined the rapid/efficient movement of bus passengers, creating as it perhaps has, a conflicting set of vehicle movements in an already complex/congested road network?

I agree that the current system may not be hugely efficient, though TfL do already try hard enough to funnel passengers onto the tube (which effectively act as the 'core' high capacity routes) with buses in Central London typically catering to short journeys to/from a rail interchange. I think that the only real way of making it even more efficient would be either to strategically cut a few bus routes in half, strengthening the busier portion, or to build trams. Think I know which would be more popular!

Plus of course the more modal shift that's achieved, the less cars on the road and more space for buses - doesn't matter if those car drivers switch to cycling, trains, buses or thames clippers but it's still more space for buses. Even with ULEZ in place though, car demand through central London is always going to be high because the city is so busy - I can't imagine the gridlock that would exist if the tube wasn't as extensive (maybe we'd have demolished half the city for motorways). You could easily fill up inner London's roads with just those who don't mind paying any extra fees in order to not have to mix with the masses - meaning that after a certain point you have to choose between either permitting cars on a road (and have the continuous gridlock) or limit it to only buses/trams + active travellers.

 

[themeone]

I'd say London is very different in this regard to other UK cities, simply due to its size, and the fact that even what can be thought of as central London is not really one place, but a number of different areas all with different purposes. So there is no one place that could serve as a useful central interchange.

I think it's also fair to say bus travel in London has become very much the poor relation in recent years as it's not been prioritised above cycling provision, LTNs and other road management schemes, meaning traffic along routes is often massively congested.

Most London routes run every 15 minutes and many a lot more frequently, which is also very different from other places. It would be easier really to identify the smaller number of "non-core" routes i.e. with frequencies of 20 minutes or more.

 

[Magrar]

I think Londoners over-estimate how big "inner" London is to out of towners.

 

[Roger1973]

I think the thing here is that London doesn't have a single 'city centre' location that lends itself to being a central bus station / interchange.

Even most London suburban routes don't have the sort of travel pattern where everyone is travelling to / from a single 'town centre' - there are very few routes, even in the most 'outer London' suburbs that just have a town centre terminus / high street and then just a residential area. There can be multiple railway stations, supermarkets, smaller shopping parades or a retail park, a hospital, along the line of route.

 

[mattb7tl]

London does have a core bus network, it is simply so extensive and consistently delivered that it does not need to be explicitly branded as one. A good product largely sells itself. I believe around nine in ten live within 600 metres of a service operating at least five buses per hour.

Outside London, core route branding is often necessary because the underlying product is not strong enough to communicate the importance on service quality alone. Even routes marketed as "core" frequently fall to half hourly or hourly frequencies during evenings and sundays. That is the major difference. A route functioning as part of the core network in London, remains turn up and go throughout the operating day: morning, midday and evening. Outside London, genuinely frequent all day services are extremely rare, I believe it is less than five services.

Before someone says it... it is sometimes claimed that it is comparable as cities achieve similar frequencies through shared corridors, but that misses the distinction between coincidence and deliberate network design. Those corridors are often frequent only because several routes are forced to use the same road to reach different areas beyond it. The combined frequency is therefore a by product of geography, not a planned promise to passengers. Once the routes diverge, the apparent "core" frequency disappears. It does not in London.

 

[stevieinselby]

The Underground and Overground are the London equivalent of any other city's core bus network!

In most cities, the core bus network is the main way that people get from the suburbs into the centre if they are using public transport. (Even in cities with a decent suburban rail network, core bus routes are likely to collectively carry more passengers than the suburban trains). That doesn't work in London, because once you're out into zone 4 or beyond, you're mostly going to be looking to some kind of rail service to get into central London because you very often don't even have a direct bus and even if you do it's going to be painfully slow compared to a train/tube. Across inner London, the population density and destination density are high enough that pretty much every route is a core route. The further out you go, the more you find that you have a Croydon core network, an Enfield core network, a Hounslow core network, and so on, with buses used mostly for getting people to their local/regional centres and for orbital travel between local/regional centres.

When pretty much every route runs 7 days a week until after 11pm and has a weekday daytime frequency of 15 minutes or better (as is the case in London) then any distinction between core and additional routes becomes irrelevant.

 

[Simon75]

I think the thing here is that London doesn't have a single 'city centre' location that lends itself to being a central bus station / interchange

I thought Charring Cross is the central area ?

 

[NorthOxonian]

I thought Charring Cross is the central area ?

It is, but it doesn't dominate demand in the way a city centre does. If you look at (say) Newcastle, demand for travel to city centre workplaces, leisure, study, retail, civic centre/appointment, and onward rail links (and even to an extent hospital) will all be going to essentially the same area and you can essentially serve all of them on most buses. With London, you have the City, West End, Bloomsbury, Oxford Street, Victoria, Waterloo, Euston Road... all of these will be important places for passengers to go (along with a dozen more besides) when heading into the centre but they're all some distance apart and can't easily be served by the same route.

Some of the outer London centres (such as Romford) do have very much a clear centre of gravity and I don't think it's a coincidence that routes to some of these more closely resemble operations elsewhere in Britain. Places like Kingston, Uxbridge, Bromley, do have more of a hub and spoke style service.

 

[themeone]

I thought Charring Cross is the central area ?

I believe it's classed as the geographical centre of London and of course it is home to a rail terminus. But in reality it's just one place among many in a larger area that constitutes central London, so wouldn't be particularly useful as a bus terminal.

That said, nearby Trafalgar Square used to be (and maybe still is) a sort of hub for night bus operations, but that serves a different market with different needs and expectations.

 

[RJ]

In ~40 years as a distant observer, I've never really got the impression London either has or wants a core network of bus routes.

Go to any other town or city, and it's obvious which routes they consider core. They're either branded or otherwise of a much higher frequency than the rest.

London has SuperLoop, but surely the point of a core bus network is it's utilitity to a central interchange/s.

London has different geography, sure, a certain mind numbing expanse. But it still has an identifiable core and key terminals.

Has the (if this is even the case) the desire to ensure every single inner London bus route has a high frequency, undermined the rapid/efficient movement of bus passengers, creating as it perhaps has, a conflicting set of vehicle movements in an already complex/congested road network?

A general walking pace crawl of inner London traffic, of which buses on a variety of routes must form a significant part.

Or indeed, have efforts at simplification/trunking of the inner London network lost the key advantage of inner London's road network to bus travel?

I spent a few years working as a bus service planner. TfL follow their service planning guidelines in planning routes - https://content.tfl.gov.uk/bus-service-planning-guidelines.pdf

Not every route in inner London is high frequency - a few that that were have lost this status and there have always been the routes that exist to serve the communities nestled between the main corridors - Inner London examples include the 322, 394, 484, P12, P13 etc.

London is such a big city with major stations and town centres a couple of miles apart from each other that it doesn't really lend itself to having a series of distinct route brands or "core" routes. Some of the routes are trunk routes that move people along major corridors, some serve communities between main corridors to maintain a comprehensive network, some exist purely out of obligation to keep as much of the GLA area within 400 metres of a bus stop as possible, others support the trunk routes by enhancing capacity on main corridors while providing popular links. Then there are the night, express and school routes. The routes work pretty well together, but changes are often necessary where external factors impact on how people move around.

Route branding has never really been a big thing in London- there have been patchwork applications over the years but product homogeneity is generally preferred. The Superloop brand was at the behest of the Mayor.

 

[Taunton]

In ~40 years as a distant observer, I've never really got the impression London either has or wants a core network of bus routes.

Go to any other town or city, and it's obvious which routes they consider core.

London does have a Core Network. It's the Underground. The bus system is secondary. In fact, bus usage in the centre is quite thin, despite a lot of routes and vehicles being around if you look through the windows at the loads they are mostly empty. There's generally more usage in the inner suburbs, especially those not on the Underground. In fact there has been a steady trend to de-emphasise routes parallel to the Underground, making it self-fulfilling.

There is, for example, no bus from Canary Wharf to Central London. Used to be when I first came here, but not now.

 

[Cesarcollie]

London does have a Core Network. It's the Underground. The bus system is secondary. In fact, bus usage in the centre is quite thin, despite a lot of routes and vehicles being around if you look through the windows at the loads they are mostly empty. There's generally more usage in the inner suburbs, especially those not on the Underground. In fact there has been a steady trend to de-emphasise routes parallel to the Underground, making it self-fulfilling.

There is, for example, no bus from Canary Wharf to Central London. Used to be when I first came here, but not now.

chicken and egg. Bus speeds are so low in central London due to lack of dedicated road space, that alternative modes (or walking) are now often quicker. So usage declines.

 

[RJ]

chicken and egg. Bus speeds are so low in central London due to lack of dedicated road space, that alternative modes (or walking) are now often quicker. So usage declines.

Development of the railway network is also a factor. The railways are overall much, much better than they were 20 years ago. There’s been a load of new lines and journey opportunities which is bound to have an effect on the number of bus users.

 

[gordonthemoron]

I’ve always believed that the 24 hour routes are the core network

 

[IanMac]

London does have a Core Network. It's the Underground. The bus system is secondary. In fact, bus usage in the centre is quite thin, despite a lot of routes and vehicles being around if you look through the windows at the loads they are mostly empty. There's generally more usage in the inner suburbs, especially those not on the Underground. In fact there has been a steady trend to de-emphasise routes parallel to the Underground, making it self-fulfilling.

There is, for example, no bus from Canary Wharf to Central London. Used to be when I first came here, but not now.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by Central London. The 135 certainly links Canary Wharf with Aldgate and Liverpool Street which are in the City, though not with anywhere in the West End.

 

[aron2smith]

I’ve always believed that the 24 hour routes are the core network

Yeah I agree. Even if coverage is replaced by a lower frequency N route, it's pretty much a core corridor. 279 is busy all day and that doesn't change when it becomes N279, especially on the weekends! I think what makes London's bus network standout is how extensive it has become in residential areas and nearly always to the same frequencies and hours of operation as anything running along the main road.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Jul 2026 ==

As for OP, London despite its density is incredibly polycentric. In my opinion, this spills over into the neighbouring counties in all directions. Even in Central London, there is no true single central point, in part because of all the major rail stations, places like Stratford and Canary Wharf and part how London and the surrounding towns and villages grew together organically. Rich West End, poor and industrial East End co-depending on each other.

Historically, 2 places where what we could consider core locations when Greenline was a thing, Aldgate and Victoria. The latter is probably the closest to a central bus station today, even though it's more for regional and national coaches. At night, a good half (30+?) of the night buses start in or around Trafalgar Square, so that's the closest to a central point on London Buses, far fewer routes in the day though.

I think what may be useful is a full network review, this would probably either have to be done borough by borough or by bringing back bus districts. And as apart of a review, include consideration to improving cross-boundary routes and expanding TFL's remit as Outer London and surrounding areas are where public transport too often lacks. In Inner London, rail connects areas in all directions, beyond zone 2/ 3, buses are far more important. I think TFL picking a specific corridor in isolation and changing it like they are doing with the 259/ 279/ 349 is deeply unhelpful and risks breaking the wider network while a place based outlook would be a lot better in its outcomes. Part of why the Meridian Water consultation was likely far better received.

 

[MotCO]

I think London did have some 'trunk routes', but some have been restricted by cutting them into sections, particularly when OPO was introduced. I'm thinking of routes such as 1, 15,21, 24, 29, 37, 77 (and associates), but there were probably others.

These routes, at one time or another, stretched from these points:
Route 1 Willesden to Bromley
Route 15 Acton Vale to Becontree Heath
Route 21 Turnpike Lane to Farningham
Route 24 Hampstead Heath to Pimlico
Route 29 Victoria to Potters Bar
Route 37 Old Kent Road to Hounslow Heath
Route 77 Kings Cross to Walington

Route 37 now only runs Peckham to Putney. Other parts are covered by route 237 Houslow Heath to White City, route 337 from Clapham Junction to Richmond, and route H37 between Hounslow and Richmond.