the use of local bus services

patronage of local bus services has been falling since at least 1952. this report uses the national travel surveys of 1965, 1972/73 and 1975/76 to examine how the use of local bus services has changed since 1965. a declining proportion of bus trips are made to and from work, and an increasing proportion for shopping. characteristics of bus users with respect to age, sex, area of residence, car ownership, income and the socio-economic group of the user's household are studied. variation of bus use with time of day and with season is shown. it is found that demand for bus travel by adults has become less peaked, and that by 1975/76 most of the additional peak demand was due to children.(a)