Sadiq Khan urged to enforce London’s bus lanes 24 hours a day Business

Sadiq Khan is expected to run the bus lanes around the clock to save up to £ 200million a year and reduce Transport for London’s burden on taxpayers, campaigners said.

Many bus lanes are only in effect for part of the day in the capital, but changing them would reduce travel times and require fewer buses to operate, they say.

Buses will be able to run on average 1 mph faster thanks to congestion reduction saving between £ 100 million and £ 200million each year, according to London TravelWatch.

In addition, the passenger group estimates that TfL would generate up to £ 85million in additional fare revenue by making the buses run faster.

TfL has a budget deficit of £ 1.7bn to keep the services running until March 2023.

Emma Gibson of London TravelWatch said: ‘The figures we release show that if we are opening the way for buses to London’s roads, doing things like introducing more 24-hour bus lanes and increasing Parking checks on bus routes, TfL would be able to run fewer vehicles and save money as journey times will be shorter and more people will use them.

The campaign group calculated that by reducing congestion, 110 of London’s 8,600 buses could be taken out of service, which would also reduce near-term pollution levels in the predominantly diesel fleet.