(19 Nov 2023, 2:27 pm)RobinHood wrote The bus will always be slower than the car though, as it stops at various points to pick up and drop off, even if the route was identical. That kind of suggests that it does need 'help' to be a comparable option that the government and politicians keep shouting about, as it cannot fly over congestion (yet). 

That help needs to be major investment in bus priority (doesn't need to be to the detriment of the car at all, if it is considered and implemented with thought, it can compliment). Unfortunately, none of our authorities are that clever to devise such a scheme.

Public Transport can apparently stand up on its own two feet yes, as evidenced by London and Manchester.... (ignoring the sheer volume of subsidy from public funds needed for both of them, but nobody talks about that, only moaning about commercial operators with their 'begging bowl' instead). When the North East goes that way, which we all know it will, the viability and performance of the network both land at the feet of the authorities and we may see some change then.

Until that time, get used to slower bus journeys.

So why bother having a bus at all? 
Why have bus priority measures, if there's not going to be a negligible impact on journey times?

All it takes is a look at the network that doesn't always work for passengers and then look at how journey times can be improved via internal approaches vs external approaches.

This is clearly a thread for a specific operator, so I won't go too far off topic, but there's many an example of journeys now taking longer than they did previously. Part of that is down to road traffic measures. The other is entirely down to the routing or stopping arrangements that have been introduced over the years. Whack in the fact the core corridors are treated as a priority over a less frequent route and you can surely see why people find the car more attractive. 
It doesn't take a genius to see that a journey of 45mins previously on one bus vs two buses plus connection times and the equivalent journey taking over an hour - is going to have an impact on passenger numbers and road traffic. 

Those barriers designed at operational level are enough to put people off using the bus and by virtue result in more traffic being on the road.

The X21 example being a prime case and as you say, we will have to get used to slower bus journeys. Or if we don't want to get used to slower bus journeys, we make the switch to the car. Leading to more cars being on the road and even slower bus journeys. Probably getting to the point where they're no longer viable.

Boils down to basic cause and effect, that nobody is able or capable of fixing.