Transport for London has published a revised safety review of floating bus stops as disability campaigners continue to question whether the layouts allow everyone to use buses safely and independently.
The updated review, published on 13 November, examines bus stop bypasses, where a cycle track runs behind the passenger waiting area. Passengers cross the track to reach an island from which they can board a bus. TfL describes the risk of pedestrians being injured at these stops as very low, but campaigners say reported collisions cannot capture the full effect on people who avoid them.
The publication is the third edition of a review first issued in 2024. TfL withdrew an earlier version after discovering that the dates when some bypasses were installed had been recorded incorrectly. It reviewed the underlying database, repeated its analysis of passenger boardings and extended its casualty analysis and design audit to include additional stops within the study period.
What the boarding data shows
The revised analysis compared boarding patterns for older and disabled passengers at stops where bypasses were built between 2019 and 2022 with patterns at other stops. The underlying dataset covers March to August 2018 and the same months in 2023.
The analysis found a slightly greater reduction, of two to three per cent, in boardings by older and disabled passengers at the bypass stops than at the comparison stops. The difference was not statistically significant. That means the analysis does not establish that the bypasses caused the difference, or show how many individuals may have changed their journeys because of them.
Sarah Gayton, of the National Federation of the Blind of the UK, argues that some people with sight or mobility difficulties stay away from the stops altogether. She also believes injuries are under-reported. Her concerns reflect a broader question about whether a low number of recorded collisions is enough to measure how accessible a bus journey feels to everyone.
Erik Matthies, the Royal National Institute of Blind People’s policy lead for travel and transport, has also challenged the idea that injury records tell the whole story. He says blind and partially sighted passengers still face difficulty crossing the cycle lane to and from a stop.
Safety and design
The review uses historical collision data rather than reporting a new series of incidents. Six pedestrian casualties were identified at bypasses during 2020 to 2022: five involved cyclists and one an e-scooter. The national collision database covers injury collisions reported to police; it does not count every unreported incident or near miss. Disability was not recorded in the data used for the earlier analysis.
Alongside the updated safety review, TfL has published a design enhancement review and a progress report. The commissioned design study, considered ways to improve accessibility and comfort for people using the stops. Potential measures include more consistent layouts, clearer separation between pedestrians and cyclists, better guidance for blind and partially sighted people, and technology intended to support safer crossings.
Those are areas identified for improvement, not a commitment that every measure has already been installed. The progress report covers work on education, customer information, design, and research and innovation.
London Cycling Campaign supports bus stop bypasses as a way to keep cycle routes protected instead of requiring riders to move into traffic around stationary buses. It also acknowledges that too many cyclists fail to give way at crossings and argues for better designs developed with disabled people’s involvement.
Calls for a pause
The findings arrive after the London Assembly voted on 5 November to ask the Mayor to pause new floating bus stops on TfL roads and funding for new stops through borough programmes until a safe design is established. The motion passed by 17 votes to three. It is a request to the Mayor, not a binding order to stop construction.
London TravelWatch has separately called for a pause on further bypasses until there is clear evidence of significantly improved cyclist compliance at the crossings. In October, the passenger watchdog also called for existing shared-use bus boarders to be removed.
Boarders are a different layout from bypasses: the cycle lane runs through the passenger boarding area rather than behind a separate island. The government asked councils to pause the implementation of boarders in 2025, but that did not amount to a general ban on new bypasses. The distinction matters as London’s transport bodies weigh both the need for protected cycling routes and the ability of passengers to reach their buses.
