Bus Service Improvement Plan

In March 2021, the Government published its vision to support the recovery of bus services post COVID in their Bus Back Better: national strategy for England document. The document promises significant additional funding (£3 billion for England outside London).

There are two important elements introduced by the National Bus Strategy:

• A Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP). This will be an annual document which has to be published by each Local Transport Authority (LTA). This first must be published by the end of October 2021.
• An Enhanced Partnership (EP) between the bus operators and the LTA. An EP is a statutory arrangement under the 2017 Bus Services Act which can specify, for example, timetables and multi-operator ticketing. In order to access the additional funding, LTA’s and bus operators had to register their intent (which has been undertaken) to enter into an EP to become operational before the end of March 2022.

Working with our local bus operators, passenger representatives, neighbouring local authorities and other stakeholders, we are committed to developing and delivering a Bus Service Improvement Plan and Enhanced Partnership.

Read our full Bus Service Improvement Plan 2 (2022), Bus Service Improvement Plan Monitoring Report - May 2022 and Bus Service Improvement Plan Monitoring Report - October 2023.