The Peak Problem

We all know about peaks. The bus used solely between 0745-0900 & 1630-1800, to cater for surges in demand, is costly indeed. All else is marginal. The schedulers’ art is to achieve a flat peak, something almost universally impossible. In rural areas, there will always be cohorts of school pupils; in urban areas, there are still at least some commuters travelling by bus.

The industry has to cope with such daily distortions. And not just daily: seasonal flows at Christmas and summer on the south coast have their counter-peaks of New Year and winter.

Price is a good mechanism to temper the peak. Pricing off demand to times when there’s spare capacity makes commercial sense.

Yet, should the bus industry try harder to gain peak use rather than flatten it? Should the advertising switch from attracting housewives to attracting commuters?

For every commuter gained, there’s likely to be 10 trips worth of revenue, day in, day out, five days a week.

Conversely, once you lose a regular, Monday to Friday peak passenger to the car, you’ve lost 10 trip worth of income – for life. That could be worth over £40,000 per passenger.