London Bus Watch by Tom Kearney

By email and blogpost Ross Moorlock, Chief Executive Officer Brake Charity PO Box 18896 Sutton Coldfield B73 9BL cc: Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Transport; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; TfL Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; TfL Chief Safety Officer; TfL Director of Bus; TfL Head of Insights and Direction; TfL Chief Operations Officer; London Assembly Transport Committee Members; CEO, London TravelWatch 6 February 2026 Dear Ross Moorlock, RE: Will Brake Charity speak up for London's and the UK's Vanished Bus Victims"? Since it appears that London Assembly Members Keith Prince (Reform) and Neil Garratt (Conservative)...

By email and blogpost Elly Baker, Chair London Assembly Transport Committee City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE 16 January 2026 cc: London Assembly Transport Committee Members; CEO, London TravelWatch; Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Transport; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; TfL Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; TfL Chief Safety Officer; TfL Director of Bus; TfL Head of Insights and Direction; TfL Chief Operations Officer Happy New Year Elly Baker. I thought you, your fellow London Assembly Transport Committee Members and all of the TfL senior officers copied here might like to scrutinise, and, if of interest, perhaps...

By email and blogpost Sir Sadiq Khan Mayor of London City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE cc: Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Transport; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; TfL Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; TfL Chief Safety Officer; TfL Director of Bus; TfL Head of Insights and Direction; TfL Chief Operations Officer; London Assembly Transport Committee Members 2 December 2025 Dear Sir Sadiq, Your refusal to respond—or even acknowledge—my Open Letter of 12 September 2025—Will TfL's 'Safety Scandal' serve as your only Legacy?—suggests that you and your TfL appointees reckon that a longstanding policy of contemptuously...

By blogpost Sir Sadiq Khan Mayor of London City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE cc: Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Transport; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; TfL Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; TfL Chief Safety Officer; TfL Director of Bus; TfL Head of Insights and Direction; TfL Chief Operations Officer; London Assembly Transport Committee Members 12 September 2025 Dear Sir Sadiq, RE: Will TfL's 'Safety Scandal' serve as your only Legacy? While I was reading the BBC's 31 August thoughtful report "Oxford Street to go car-free for a day", a couple of horrific and all-too-familiar reports popped up on my twitter...

Three “Rights” listed in the London Bus Drivers Bill of Rights — The Right to a safe work schedule without any forced overtime or loss of pay The Right to a decent and proper rest break in the working day ⁠⁠The Right to be treated with dignity and respect by our employers, TfL and the public — underscore the extent to which the system in which TfL negotiates, agrees and enforces its Bus Performance Contracts is broken. But there’s something deeply broken about a Public Surface Transport System the compels its own workers to be complacent about Fatigue even before they start the job. Among TfL's Bus Contractors a Fatigue-inducing Practice of forcing new Bus Drivers to sign away their right to a legal 48-hour working week has...

By email and blogpost Caroline Russell AM London Assembly City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE cc: London Assembly Members; Mayor of London; Deputy Mayor - Transport, Transport Commissioner; TfL Director - Bus; Deputy Mayor - Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat 26 May 2025 Dear Caroline Russell, RE: The Mayor's 7 May 2025 Response to the London Assembly's 13 February 2025 London Bus Driver 'Bill of Rights' Petition Kindly note that I am forced to write to you anonymously because the poor TfL Bus Safety Performance and Bus Driver Working Conditions issues I highlight publicly here today might get me fired from my...

By blogpost 20 May 2025 London Bus Alliance c/o Michael Roberts, Chief Executive, London TravelWatch cc: Mayor of London; Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; London Assembly Transport Committee Members; House of Commons Transport Committee Members; Sharon Graham - Unite the Union; Eddie Dempsey - RMT Union; Gary Smith - GMB Union; Barry Gardiner-MP; Sian Berry - MP, Gareth Bacon - MP, Tom Kearney (@comadad); London Bus Alliance Members Attachment: London Bus Alliance Letter to TfL (13...

28 April 2025 By blogpost & email Mr. Seb Dance, Deputy Mayor for Transport City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE cc: Mayor of London; Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; London Assembly Transport Committee Members; House of Commons Transport Committee Members; Sharon Graham - Unite the Union; Eddie Dempsey - RMT Union; Gary Smith - GMB Union; Barry Gardiner-MP; Tom Kearney (@comadad) Dear Mr. Deputy Mayor, Thank you for your delayed 11 March 2025 response (attached) to my 10 December 2024 Open Letter to the Mayor of London urging him to act immediately in support of the...

It is an honour to be invited to address the 82nd RMT Bus Workers' National Industrial Organising Conference (NIOC). This is the fourth Conference I've attended since 2019 and it's a pleasure to be in Exeter as your guest this morning. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a self-employed London businessman who, in my free time, campaigns to improve Transport for London's "institutionally unsafe" Franchised Bus System, which, in my view, is precisely the Negligent Public Bus Contracting Model this Government will take nationwide if its Buses Bill passes unamended through the House of Commons. At last year's pre-election NIOC at Cleethorpes, I asked a question: Will Labour Unions make Labour's "Better Buses" Plans 'better' for...

From: Kevin Mustafa Subject: Urgent Concerns Regarding Bus Safety and Driver Fatigue Date: 23 March 2025 at 10:31:17 GMT To: Lorna Murphy - TfL Director of Buses <[email protected]>, Andy Lord - TfL Commissioner <[email protected]> Cc: Tom Kearney, Neil Garratt <[email protected]>, Keith Prince <[email protected]>, Caroline Russell <[email protected]>, peter skinner <[email protected]>, Lorraine Bus Driver <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, James Rossi <[email protected]>, Michael Liebreich <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Dear Lorna , Andy I am writing to formally raise serious...

Michael Liebreich stopping traffic at London Bus Drivers' Bill of Rights March to Parliament Square (29 January 2025) Are you a Londoner? Do you ever come to London on business or for leisure, or as a tourist? Then this post is for you. You might find the sight of a red London bus reassuring. You should find it terrifying. In an annual benchmarking study carried out by Imperial College, London scores consistently in the lowest tercile for safety, probably the least safe bus system of any major European city. I was on the board of TfL and chaired the Safety Panel, and I know why: the system under which TfL contracts out bus services to private companies is "institutionally unsafe". Payment is tied entirely to the number of...

1. London accounts for about one half of UK Bus Journeys and one quarter of the UK's Bus Fleet. Source: DfT 2. TfL Buses are ten times more lethal than their presence on London's roads would predict; since 2014, 1 in 10 RTC Fatals and 1 in 10 Pedestrian Deaths in London have involved a TfL bus. Sources: Mayor of London; TfL; London Assembly 3. TfL’s sole metric of bus contract performance is a time-based “Excess Waiting Time”/Headway calculation that independent benchmarking shows London— in the highest tercile of its ‘world city’ peers for Bus Punctuality and Profitability per Bus; in lowest tercile of its ‘world city’ peers for safety (collisions per km); London has the least safe public bus system of any major...