More than a million city bus lane penalties issued each year, research finds

Motorists in the UK’s largest cities receive more than a million penalty charge notices for driving in bus lanes each year, according to the RAC.

Using data from Freedom of Information requests to the UK’s 20 largest cities, the motoring organisation revealed that a total of 3,437,348 bus lane penalty charge notices (PCNs) were issued between 2015 and 2017. Split equally, that’s roughly 1,145,700 PCNs each year.

Though the cost of a bus lane fine can vary considerably, the RAC estimates that the total value of PCNs issued is £68m each year – more than £200m in the three-year period.

Requests to London’s 33 local authorities saw 27 of them respond, for a total of 994,473 PCNs issued.

The number of fines varied by location, with Manchester City Council issuing the highest amount outside of the capital – 352,688 sent in total over three years. The council issued 172,311 of these in 2017 alone, marking a dramatic 175 per cent increase on 2015’s 62,580 PCNs.

Manchester was followed by Glasgow, which issued 339,402 PCNs over three years, Cardiff (267,713), Bradford (208,790) and Nottingham (194,993).

Two cities – Liverpool and Sunderland – issued zero PCNs, though both have under a mile of bus lane. However, Stoke-on-Trent, which has similarly few bus lanes, issued 4,635 PCNs between 2015 and 2017.

Commenting on the findings, RAC spokesman Simon Williams said: “Bus lanes have a vital role to play in ensuring the reliability of public transport as they help to keep our urban areas moving. But the sheer quantity of fines – more than a million every year – suggests something is awry, and we don’t believe the vast majority are knowingly breaking the rules.

“We believe more can be done to make it obvious to drivers when they can and can’t drive in a bus lane. A lot of this is down to improving signage, but we also think it is time we saw modern technology being used to make things clearer for road users. Stretches of smart motorway use roadside signs to indicate which lanes are open and closed – we believe towns and cities should now consider introducing smart bus lanes that use similar signage.”