Paul Corfield wrote:
On Thursday, 5 April 2018 15:03:08 UTC+1, Jarle Hammen Knudsen wrote:
On Thu, 05 Apr 2018 11:59:16 +0100, Recliner
wrote:

ridership is unexpectedly down

Why?

--
jhk

TfL have yet to publish a definitive researched result. However the
following have all been mentioned.

a) increased congestion has slowed bus services meaning people use them less.
b) risk averse "padded" bus timetables mean buses stop and "wait time"
for minutes at a time to ensure operators achieve headway targets.
Passengers get ****ed off with this nonsense (who can blame them?) and
stop using the buses.
c) people have transferred to cycles for some journeys.
d) the rise of Uber and similar services have reduced demand for night
buses as has the introduction of the Night Tube.
e) the rise of online shopping is reducing shopping trips on public transport.
f) the rise of home delivery services for take away food is reducing trip
numbers and people travelling to eat out in restaurants.
g) some employment sectors are seeing softening in demand and employment
levels. My own view is this will get VASTLY worse due to Brexit.
h) changes in working patterns mean people commute less and work from
home more. Also many jobs are insecure in terms of regular hours.
i) more people are self employed so don't have traditional commuting patterns.
j) the widespread availability of real time bus info has made it more
obvious to people where there may be gaps in the service or the service
is worse than people perceived it to be. People therefore don't use buses so much.
k) concern over jobs means people are reducing their discretionary spend
on leisure activity thus reducing off peak public transport use.
l) years and years of austerity don't help encourage people to make
frivolous use of public transport.
m) the increased use of contactless cards and paying per trip or charges
per day from bank accounts has made people more aware of the cost of
using publci transport. This may have discouraged people from making
extra trips where they have not reached a daily cap level.

As you can see there is a mix of internal (to TfL) and external factors
affecting how people use the system. It's little wonder if there is
decline in amongst all those issues. Of course TfL's response is to cut
bus services across London so bus usage will fall as people find a worse service.

This was covered out in Inside Out London on Monday, mentioning some of the
factors you cite.

In a way, we should be pleased, as it saves TfL some capital investment,
and pollution should be reduced with fewer journeys into central London. If
people can accomplish largely the same economic impact by using high speed
broadband from home rather than physically travelling into central London,
it's a productivity benefit.

I think the problems being suffered by mid-market restaurant chains
supports the hypothesis.

Brexit could have an effect in the future if it cuts the number of EU
citizens coming to work in London, but I doubt that it's had much effect
yet.