BusAndTrainUser’s Annual Review and Quiz of the Year 2025

Saturday 20th December 2025

Welcome to another end of year nostalgic look back over the last twelve months of bus and train activity in Britain. As always, before revealing 2025’s highs and lows here’s the chance to test your own recall and knowledge of the year’s events with the BusAndTrainUser Annual Quiz of the Year. The answers will become apparent as you read on but if you miss any, there’s a quick crib sheet at the very end setting out all ten definitive answers.

So here we go with the…

BusAndTrainUser Quiz of the Year 2025

1 What connects the numbers: 118; 283; 347; 414.

2 What connects: Class 555 trains for Tyne & Wear Metro; Class B23 trains for DLR; Metrobus single deck hydrogen powered buses in Crawley; West Midlands trams serving Wolverhampton St Georges tram stop.

3 What comes next in the sequence: TransPennine Express; South Western Railway; c2c…..

4 What’s the odd one out: Southampton; East Anglia; Cornwall; Bournemouth.

5 What connects: White Rose; Winslow; Moseley Village/Kings Heath/Pineapple Road; Cambridge South.

6 What’s the odd one out: Transport for London; Ray Stenning; Carousel Buses; Hull Trains.

7 What connects: Hulleys; Kent Country; Lonsdale Buses; Leighlink

8 What’s the odd one out: Stagecoach route 92 in Whitfield, Kent; Arriva route 211 in Speke, Merseyside; Go-Bus route GC1 in Ebbsfleet, Kent; Centrebus route R2 in Rutland

9. What comes next in the sequence: Azuma, Arterio; Evero ….

10. What’s the odd one out: Avanti West Coast’s 07:00 Manchester Piccadilly to Euston; the departure boards at Euston station; LNER’s Simpler Fares “industry-leading initiative”; TfL route 375 being curtailed at Chase Cross instead of terminating in Romford.

And now for the Review…..

Future transport historians will no doubt characterise 2025 by a number of public transport milestones, not least the Bus Services Act becoming law at the end of October and just over a week later the Railways Bill arriving in Parliament paving the way for Great British Railways while this week has seen the Bus Services (Wales) Bill passed by the Welsh Government paving the way for bus reform in Wales.

As the Railways Bill is poured over in Parliament the launch of an apparent “first draft” GBR livery on a Hornby model train at London Bridge a couple of weeks ago reaffirmed franchising is very much now dead on the tracks, except of course in various places not least London, where First Group has just been awarded a contract to run London Overground for TfL from next summer (ousting Arriva), and of course there’s growing excitement for bus franchising in Mayoral Combined Authorities with Merseyside, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire following Greater Manchester’s lead with Tyne & Wear and West Midlands also eyeing up the prize of public control. Franchising is alive and well.

Talking of public control, the year saw South Western Railways, c2c and Greater Anglia pass to Government ownership through an expanded DfT Operator Ltd (formerly DfT Operator of Last Resort) while two “elephants in the room” continue to be the future of HS2 other than as an Acton to Aston shuttle service and whatever Northern Powerhouse Rail is meant to be these days with no pronouncements from the current Government on either, despite anguish from northern Metro Mayors and Euston continuing its role as the country’s largest building site for no current purpose.

Other key strategic developments in 2025 saw England’s £2 bus fare cap increase to £3 in January, initially to last “through to the end of December 2025” but now set in stone until March 2027 while last month’s Budget unusually confirmed regulated rail fares will be frozen in March 2026, but not unregulated fares such as Anytime and Advanced tickets which can presumably be rebranded AnyPrice tickets. Other welcome financial news said to make 2025 a “breakthrough and landmark year” for the bus industry was DfT’s recent announcement of a multi year (three) financial commitment of £2.26 billion funding to local authorities in England to spend as they wish on support for local bus services.

Buying, Selling and Merging

News from the Corporate Bus Business World over the last 12 months has included Transdev taking over bus routes previously operated by Sutton-on-the Forest based Reliance Motor Services after that long established and much respected company gave up running local bus services; Highland Council buying out D&E Coaches in Inverness; and in Sevenoaks, last year’s takeover of Go-Coach by Derbyshire based Hulleys being reversed just in the nick of time in January, less than three months before Hulley’s went bust in March, as did Felixstowe Travel, while at the end of August, Filers Travel ceased running buses in north Devon as did Cumbria Classic Coaches in September and CT4N entered Administration in November.

National Express sold its National Express Travel Solutions owned coach companies (Lucketts, Worthing Coaches, Clarkes of London and KIngs Ferry) to the Coach Travel Group while Kelsian Group owned Tower Transit bought out Huyton Travel on Merseyside (no prizes for guessing why) in February and South Wales Transport (same reason) in November while McGills bought Prentice Westwood of Livingston in July and First Bus owned Ensign bought Keane Travel of Orsett in September.

Talking of Tower Transit, the company lost the contract to run Guernsey’s buses with Stagecoach beginning a new chapter on the Island while back on the mainland Stagecoach merged its West Scotland and East Scotland operations to form a new combined South Scotland business in November and earlier this month did the same with Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

First Bus returned to London with its takeover of RATP’s operations achieving legal completion in February followed by the acquisition of RATP’s sightseeing businesses in the UK earlier this month (in London and Bath) as well as a continuing dabble in the coach hire sector with the purchase of Matthews Coaches of Dundalk back in February. Not to be outdone Go-Ahead bought out Pearces Coaches of Oxfordshire in March, Morse Coaches of North Yorkshire in November, dipped its toe in the West Yorkshire bus market winning tendered route 571 (between Halifax and Shelf) in February before taking on Transdev’s former route X98/X99 between Leeds and Wetherby at the end of August. It also reorganised and renamed its East Anglian companies, Chambers and Heddingham to Konectbus Essex and Suffolk in June only to sell the whole caboodle less than three months later in September, to Transport Made Simple. Meanwhile down in Cornwall, First Bus blinked first after September’s competitive onslaught from Go Cornwall and announced in November a complete exit from the county by next February.

More Spats

Other spats during the year included Go-Coach Hire using its new ‘go-bus’ name to compete against Arriva’s hourly route 477 between Dartford, Swanley and Orpington by introducing new half hourly journeys as far south as Swanley leading to Arriva immediately throwing in the towel only for Go-Ahead to pick it up and introduce another new name, ‘Kent Country’, as it took over Arriva’s operation, but good sense prevailed between the two ‘Go’ companies with a sensibly spaced timetable and mutual ticket acceptance from October.

Meanwhile over in the former county councils known as Berkshire and Buckinghamshire treading on toes between Go-Ahead owned Carousel Buses and Reading Buses (along with its subsidiary Thames Valley) has seen new routes and duplication in the Maidenhead, High Wycombe, Twyford and Reading corridors while up in Scarborough, in October, Viscount Travel began competitive route X28 to Pickering pitched against East Yorkshire’s long standing route 128 with the latter responding with a new X3 to Pickering and over in Lancashire, Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire used a new name of ‘Lonsdale Buses’ to run competitive route 85 timed in front of Stagecoach’s route 5 between Carnforth and Morecambe.

Last year’s X38 spat between Arriva and trentbarton between Derby and Burton-on-Trent eased back a little this year with Arriva reducing its journeys from every 20 minutes to half hourly with trentbarton continuing every 15 minutes while in Aylesbury, Red Rose began running a duplicate route K2 version of Z&S Transport’s route K1 to Kingsbrook Estate/Armstrong Fields in July.

New bus routes launched

Aside from those competitive initiatives, it was encouraging to see more new bus routes hit the road during 2025 and not all as a result of Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding, either.

Significant commercial developments included Arriva’s new Loop branded route carving out a loop to link up much of the southern part of Milton Keynes; up in Glasgow JMB Travel began its new X1 between Hamilton and the city (a route ditched by First Bus some time ago); Carousel began route 127 between Maidenhead and Reading while Reading Buses started route 12 between Twyford and Reading and (as Thames Valley) route 20 between Maidenhead and High Wycombe in November as well as new route 704 between Maidenhead and Heathrow Terminal 5 back in June. In response First Bus withdrew its longstanding link between Maidenhead and Slough just this last weekend.

Over in North Wales, Arriva launched a new summer Cymru Coastliner CC12 providing a quicker link between Rhyl and Llandudno complementing its long established route 12 and down in Medway new summer only 192 linked Allhallows with Chatham through the Medway tunnel. Also for the summer, start-up Northstar ran two new routes during the school holiday between the Metro Centre and Chester le Street (X22) and Stanley (X43)

In rural Lincolnshire, Black Cat began new route 2 between Lincoln and Retford in April while in Kent, Metrobus began new route 284 in June linking Tunbridge Wells with Southborough and Pembury hospital treading a little on Arriva’s toes in the process and on the north west fringes of Greater London, Carousel reunited Uxbridge with Amersham with its new direct route 101 and Chesham and Amersham with Beaconsfield and High Wycombe with new route 105.

BSIP inspired routes included Brighton & Hove’s cross city 3X joining the successful (and now, “award winning”) 1X introduced last year and in Hertfordshire, uno began an extended and renumbered (to 243) former route 84B which with its new sister route 242 (which uno had taken over from Metroline) gives a half hourly Hatfield to Potters Bar facility with the former continuing to Barnet and the latter to Waltham Cross providing many new cross county connections.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority introduced a whole series of new T prefixed routes (T1 to T5, T7 and T12) as part of its enhancements to the region’s bus network. Most notable was the T1 providing a new quick link from Huntingdon into Cambridge on part of the Busway and of course not forgetting the T2 linking three of the city’s Park & Ride sites to much derision (from me). Southend-on-Sea re-entered the market of funded bus routes awarding a two year contract to Stephensons to run a new Leighlink branded route 23A/B connecting Leigh-on-Sea with Southend Airport and Business Park

London and Wales

In London TfL began new routes SL4 and SC1 (for cyclists) through the newly opened Silvertown Tunnel in April together with an extended route 129 linking Lewisham and North Greenwich with Beckton and Gallions Reach while Barkerloop BL1 made its debut in September…

… and route 241 got extended through the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and route 315 was extended to serve the new residential area on the former Spingfield Hospital residential development site in Tooting.

On the debit side more frequency reductions and lost links saw route numbers R6, 118, 283, 347 and 414 all withdrawn with consequential changes to long standing routes 45 and 59 in January and in June modal integration was dealt a blow when route 205, until then serving many main line railway stations, was rerouted to Marble Arch to replace a curtailed route 30 (at Euston) and thereby no longer served Marylebone or Paddington.

Service changes in Wales were dominated by September’s mash up in Powys when it was goodbye to TrawsCymru branded routes T4, T12 and T14 and hello to replacement routes X4, X44, X76, and X85 along with new route X80 restoring a long lost direct service between Brecon and Llandovery. The changes got off to a difficult start due to a lack of information and publicity. Later in the month the slimmed down TrawsCymru network picked itself up again and added the newly branded T51 (formerly 51/X51) between Rhyl and Wrexham operated by Arriva.

On the tendered bus front back in England notable mini networks changing hands included Leighton Buzzard from Arriva to Centrebus, Brighton and Hove from Big Lemon to Compass Bus while Glen Valley took over the Holy Island 477 tidal bus route from Borders Buses.

Other funded service enhancements saw First Bus begin new route X6 between Sheffield and Rotherham while in the Lake District a new seasonal route 517 linked Ambleside with Little Langdale while notable service withdrawals included Arriva’s route X5 between Hemel Hempstead and Aylesbury (replaced by Red Eagle’s 500) and its route 133 between Braintree and Stansted Airport (replaced by Central Connect).

DRT comings and goings

It was a quieter year for DRT developments although both Arriva’s two remaining Click operations were withdrawn. The one in Ebbsfleet was taken over by go-bus’s GC1 on a part fixed timetable and part flexi off-peak operation and in Speke on Merseyside the operation reverted back to fixed timetable route 211, as it was before becoming DRT back in 2019. A similar fate befell the Stagecoach Connect operation in Whitfield, Kent reverting back to fixed timetable route 92.

However, elsewhere money continued to be showered on continued expansion of existing schemes including Tiger in Cambridgeshire, Wiltshire Connect, Surrey Connect and Leicestershire’s FoxConnect while in Rutland the Council fully embraced DRT bringing in three Call Connect branded zones across the county in March and August leaving just three fixed timetabled routes: R1, R5 and R9. Hampshire County Council withdrew all its taxibus type operations but introduced a new DRT in Andover in March. In January Telford & Wrekin Council began TravelTelford On Demand linking Telford with Ironbridge and Madeley and in May, Portsmouth City Council began Pompey Link in the Paulsgrove and Port Solent areas.

Express expansion

Other 2025 style expansion saw coach companies ember and Flixbus continue to grow their networks – the former reached Fort William and Thurso/Wick as well as new routes between Dundee and both Glasgow and Edinburgh, and the latter continued to add towns and cities to its nationwide network including a new Cambridge to Brighton route via Gatwick Airport and Manchester to Glasgow link – while FlibCo arrived on the scene and took over one of the lucrative routes between central London and Stansted AIrport.

Stagecoach launched a new JET787 between St Andrews and Edinburgh Airport and McGills began a new Aberdeen Adventurer open-top bus tour in partnership with the City Council and Chamber of Commerce in the city. On the debit side McGills owned Midland Bluebird withdrew its Airport Express between Edinburgh Airport and Waverley Bridge in November after just under two years competing with Lothian on this lucrative corridor.

On the tracks

The railway introduced its long awaited revamped timetable on the East Coast Mainline last weekend giving an extra hourly path to LNER for a new quicker journey between King’s Cross and Newcastle along with a complete recast of other journeys it runs as well as those by TransPennine Express, Northern, Cross Country and Lumo. The latter now reaching Glasgow by a few newly extended journeys from King’s Cross to Edinburgh while Northern is shortly adding a new hourly Sheffield to Leeds quicker journey and TfW has increased the Chester to Wrexham frequency to two an hour.

Last weekend also nearly saw the withdrawal of the 07:00 Manchester to Euston train from the public timetable even though the train was going to run with just staff on board until the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) saw sense and changed its mind after much public ridicule. Other journey withdrawals impacting Blackpool, Holyhead and Chester did go ahead.

There was much activity with Open Access applications during the year but most were turned down by the ORR with capacity constraints increasingly becoming a limiting factor on the tracks.

In May MTR made way for GTS Rail Operations Ltd (a joint venture between Go-Ahead and Tokyo Metro and Sunitomo Coporation) to run the Elizabeth line while TfW announced it was renaming the Borderlands line to the Wrexham and Liverpool line even though it doesn’t yet reach Liverpool.

Nine day blockades for engineering and signal work took place on the Tunbridge Wells to Hastings, Petersfield to Portsmouth and East Suffolk (Ipswich to Halesworth) lines in October while the Cumbrian Coast line continues to be severed between Whitehaven amd Corkickle due to flooding problems in the Bransty Tunnel. At the other extreme dry weather led to problems on the West of England line in the summer with unstable embankments leading to a reduced two-hourly service due to trains having to run at reduce speed. Normal service was resumed at the end of November.

The Island line once again suffered from intermittent closures for weeks of either the entire line or north from Ryde, St Johns Road. Hopefully 2026 might get to see a full 12 months of uninterrupted operation on this beleaguered line.

New infrastructure

New infrastructure opening in 2025 included two new railway stations on the Northumberland Line at Newsham (in March) and Blyth Bebside (in October) with the large Beaulieu Park near Chelmsford joining the network in November. The long awaited and much delayed “Transport Hub” finally opened in Porth in February with the new “boulevard style bus station” in Fleming Way, Swindon opening in October and a new “linear bus station” under construction in Folkestone and a “transport interchange” nearing completion in York while Halton Lea North bus station on the Runcorn Busway closed for refurbishment.

Ynyswen station near Treherbert reopened this month with a new second platform and footbridge with lifts after a protracted closure since 2023 while in London, Knightsbridge Underground station gained step free access in April, Battersea Power Station gained a new step-free entrance in October and Cutty Sark DLR station closed in May for four new escalators to be fitted.

Other infrastructure developments saw King Charles officially open the new Taffs Wells tram-trains depot (albeit it’s not operationally open yet), electric trains running to East Kilbride, Bradford Forster Square gain a new Platform 0, Huddersfield station closed during September while Deighton station also closed that month but for two years, both for remodelling and reconstruction as part of the continuing Transpennine Route Upgrade project.

Also in London, the Moorgate branch of the Northern City Line saw the European Train Control System (ETCS) become fully functional south of Finsbury Park with the last of the old track side signals removed in May.

Trials of autonomous bus operations continued in Sunderland (during March) as well as Belfast and Cambridge but ended across the Forth Bridge in Scotland when Stagecoach withdrew its route AB1. The Coventry Very Light Rail project saw a trial in the city during the summer.

Old news about old infrastructure included the reopening in January of Bradford Interchange after last year’s closure due to structural defects while part of the site of Arriva’s Belle Isle bus garage in Wakefield reopened after a similar shut down.

New trains and buses

The Newcastle Metro welcomed its first Class 555s into service as did London’s DLR its Class B23 trains albeit both were then withdrawn for further checks following issues with brakes and doors.

London Northwestern introduced more of its class 730 trains, as did South Western Railways its much delayed Class 701 Arterios, and after a three year delay East Midlands Railways finally got the first of its Hitachi Class 810 Aurora trains into service earlier this month. At the other end of train life expectancy, SWR withdrew its last remaining Class 455s and GWR did the same with its ‘Castle’ HST sets with the company giving a new lease of life to former TfW Class 175s which began their new life with GWR this month.

On the new bus front more electric buses hit the road but with many still delayed awaiting infrastructure installation and the first of the new ADL Enviro 100 model began appearing in fleets and the Irizar ieTram finally arrived into service on Fastrack route A with route B destined to follow next year now planning permission has been granted for recharging pantographs at the Dartford terminus.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Metrobus withdrew all its 43 single deck hyrdrogen powered buses following a vehicle catching fire in Crawley.

Comings and goings

People on the move to managing director and senior executive roles included Gianfranco Sgro as the new CEO at Arriva Group with Martijn Gilbert returning from rail to take over the reins as MD Arriva UK buses; Andy Edwards stepped up to become MD at Go-Ahead London; Kevin Gale became CEO National Express UK and Germany with Anthony Goozee MD of National Express West Midlands and Jainer Martinez Prieto at National Express Coaches; Ed Wills is moving across to Go South Coast as MD from 1st January with Rupert Cox becoming Interim MD at Brighton & Hove (from East Anglia) while Sarah Boyd took on Lothian’s trams in addition to its buses as CEO at Lothian and Fiona Docherty added East Scotland to her Stagecoach West Scotland responsibilities in a newly formed Stagecoach South Scotland as does Rob Jones adding Merseyside to Greater Manchester.

On rail, Lawrence Bowman became a track and train integrated MD at South Western Railway, Steve White expanded his responsibilities at Southeastern to include track as well as trains while Stuart Jones took over First Rail Open Access with Fran Barrett began looking after London Tram Operations and the Cablecar; Shiona Rolfe took over the MD role at Cross Country while big cheeses arriving included Jeremy Westlake as the new CEO at Network Rail, Alex Hynes (pictured above) becomes CEO of DfT Operations and Jamie Burles is the new Integrated MD for the Anglia Region (Greater Anglia, c2c and Network Rail Anglia).

Other Hellos and Welcome in the year included a £1 fare (£3 a day) for tots to teens (with 16-21 year olds needing a ‘mytravelpass’) across all buses in Wales; a Temporary Congestion Charge in Oxford; a newly designed digital clock at London Bridge followed by other locations across the network; new headrests for LNER’s first class Azuma seats that don’t fall off when you rest your head on them; a new “we’ve got you” slogan from Stagecoach along with another new national livery roll out; a new name for Manchester Metrolink’s Barton Dock tram stop, now called Trafford Palazzo (!); Altnebrac station reopened in April after its enforced closure for legal reasons and Southeastern’s Networker 465908 sported the original Network South East livery (pictured in pride of place at the top of this blog) and named in honour of Chris Green, while Cross Country Trubostar 170101 launched a new livery for that company just ahead of the GBR launch, (odd timing has always been a thing with Cross Country).

And, of course, not forgetting the notable 200th anniversary of the passenger railway being duly marked by the Greatest Gathering of trains in Derby in August, a weekend of commemoration between Stockton and Darlington in September, a touring exhibition train as well as fascinating walking tours of three mainline London termini (London Bridge, Victoria and Waterloo) and lots of pennants and flags at stations across the network.

Meanwhile, a few Farewell and Goodbyes in the year included the saddest of them all, the tragic loss of Andrew Wickham at Go South Coast through his untimely death at such a young age in May. Seven months on the pain of his loss is still raw with Andrew so deeply missed by all who knew him.

Others leaving their senior roles during the year included Matt Davies (Stagecoach Merseyside) and Douglas Robertson (Stagecoach East Scotland) with Tom Joyner completing his Interim MD role at Go-Ahead London and Rupert Cox leaving Go-Ahead East Anglia on its sale to Transport Made SImple and popping up in Brighton. Martin Beable moved from MD of Greater Anglia to become New Trains and Fleet Director for Transport UK and Andrew Haines retired as CEO of Network Rail as did Robin Gisby from DfTO.

Bigwigs leaving their posts included Ignacio Garat CEO Mobico (“the right time for a change in leadership”); Alex Jensen CEO National Express and Miguel Parras CEO Go-Ahead Group after only 20 months so he can “pursue other opportunities“.

Other goodbyes during the year included peak rail fares in Scotland, the Magic Bus brand from Greater Manchester, uno serving Cockfosters, the once a day Cross Country operated through rail journey from Aberdeen to Penzance, Stagecoach’s network of bus routes in Dumfries and Galloway…

…cash handling on Stagecoach routes D4, D5 and D6 in Daventry and open top buses in Cornwall.

It’s been another busy year.

Numbers of the Year

1% increase in bus passenger journeys in 2024/25 over 2023/24 in Britain.

1% decrease in bus passenger journeys in 2024/25 over 2023/24 in London.

3 minutes – a new arrangement introduced in 2025 being the time before a train leaves King’s Cross that it’s removed from the departure board.

4.6% increase in regulated rail fares in March.

7 coaches, reduced from the former 9 coaches, for LNER’s remaining Mark 4 sets (so they can go as fast as Azumas).

9.17 mph average bus speed in London in 2024/25.

18 years of age the new lower minimum age to become a train driver.

25 year anniversary for TfL, Hull Trains and Carousel Buses (and the London Eye).

30 mph the new speed limit on the Cambridgeshire Busway….only to now just be reduced to a ridiculous 20mph.

99% satisfaction at High Peak, according to Transport Focus ‘Your Bus Journey Passenger Satisfaction’.

£125 for the dubious pleasure of sitting in the cab of an Underground train in the overrun at the disused Charing Cross Jubilee line platform for a minute as part of a Hidden London special.

200 years of passenger train operations in Britain.

200 coaches operated on the FlixBus network in Britain.

200 (or is it 300?) DfT staff transferring to Great British Railways via DfT Operator Ltd.

£650 per passenger cost of the Ynyswen Rail Replacement bus.

£1,500 per day lane rental proposed charge to contractors digging up Greater Manchester roads.

£13,515 cost of dressing one bus in Bakerloop branding for the Mayor’s pre-launch PR stunt.

£830,000 compensation paid by Network Rail to businesses impacted by the Botley Road closure in Oxford.

£145,000,000 cost of funding regulated rail fares bring frozen in 2026/27.

£216,000,000 cost declared for constructing the 1km bat shed and its associated civil works in Buckinghamshire for HS2.

£220,500,000 for 10 additional nine car Class 345 trains for the Elizabeth line now under construction.

£240,000,000 funding for Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) in England.

£300,000,000 cost of transforming to bus franchising in Wales.

£900,000,000 net operating loss for TfL buses in 2024/25 (revenue £1,565,000,000 and costs £2,454,000,000).

£2,260,000,000 funding announced for Local Authority Bus Grants across England lasting three years from 2026/27-2028/29.

Quiz answers:

1: All four are bus route numbers withdrawn by TfL; 2: All were introduced in 2025 and then withdrawn due to safety and other issues; 3: Greater Anglia comes next (the order of train companies being nationalised); 4: East Anglia where Go-Ahead sold out but took over in the other three cases; 5: All new railway stations with a postponed opening into at least 2026; 6: Ray Stenning celebrated his 75th birthday while the others marked their 25 year anniversary; 7: All new brand names to be found on the sides of buses in 2025; 8: Centrebus R2 in Rutland was converted to DRT and the other three reverted back from DRT to fixed timetable and route; 9: Aurora comes next (names of new trains introduced on the network); 10: LNER’s Simpler Fares “industry-leading initiative” was expanded during the year whereas the other initiatives were withdrawn after a public outcry and a dose of humble pie was eaten.

How did you do? Hopefully 10 out of 10 and a Gold Star.

Finally, don’t miss the BusAndTrainUser Awards 2025. The ceremony begins on Tuesday at 06:00.

Roger French