TfL received over 4k complaints about London bus routes being diverted last year as passengers end up 'miles away' from destination

November was the month during which the most complaints about bus diversions were received over 2024

One passenger said they were often late for work due to frequent bus diversions.

Over 4,000 complaints were received by Transport for London (TfL) last year regarding bus journeys that were diverted or curtailed. One passenger claimed they were often late for work as a result of buses being diverted 'miles away' from their route.

The data was shared in a response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made to the transport authority. A customer asked TfL for figures on the number of complaints received about buses being diverted due to mitigations set out by operators, while also citing their frustration at such situations.

The passenger said: "Could you please tell me the number of passenger complaints received for 2024 due to buses being diverted or curtailed due to bus operator mitigations? Many times I have been on buses where they have been diverted miles away from their route, making me late for work, and this is due to delays and bus controllers diverting buses. Is this allowed by TfL?"

Figures in the response showed that 4,370 complaints were received by TfL over 2024 on the topic. This represented an average of about 365 complaints being sent each month.

The month with the greatest number of complaints was November, with 575 grievances being made. October followed closely with 547 complaints.

August saw the fewest number of complaints, with 174 being received over the month.

The FOI case officer said in the response: "Bus operators have route control strategies in place to allow them to make adjustments to the operation of a service in response to disruption. This allows an operator to avoid localised issues from causing disruption across the full length of the route and minimises the impact on customers across the entire service."

The transport authority noted that it operates over 600 different bus routes across its network. It added that there were 1.8 billion passenger journeys made by local buses in the capital between March 2023 and March 2024.