Structural barriers to improving bus stop accessibility

There is a growing awareness of accessibility needs and available national guidance on inclusive mobility. However, delivering fully inclusive bus stop infrastructure remains challenging for many local authorities because of organisational, and resource-driven barriers. These include:

1. Lack of robust, statutory guidance

There are different examples of good practice for bus stop infrastructure and national regulations for accessible information provision on board buses. However, there is currently no single, consistent and comprehensive source of national guidance that establishes clear expectations for bus stop infrastructure and information provision.¹³ This leads to inconsistencies for passengers.

2.Insufficient funding and resources

Bus stop infrastructure and information accessibility improvements can be expensive, and local transport authorities have limited capital funding dedicated to buses. Revenue funding constraints also make it difficult to undertake ongoing cleaning and maintenance, such as printed timetable revisions and replacing damaged or outdated equipment.¹⁴ The shift towards longer-term, needs-based Local Authority Bus Grant allocations could ease these pressures.

3. Fragmentation of responsibilities

In some regions, responsibilities are split between governance levels. In two-tier areas, it is the upper-tier county councils (as the local transport authorities) that are responsible for bus stop investment plans and procurement, while lower-tier district councils (as the highways authorities) manage road and pavement layout changes, parking and traffic management. The latter also tend to manage maintenance and upkeep of bus stops. The local transport authorities are responsible for coordinating and reporting service and timetable changes, while the highways authorities may be the ones to physically change the information at bus stops, or this may be delegated to operators. All this requires very close collaboration and good working relationships between different local authority teams and bus operators.

4. Competing demands for limited space

Roads, pavements and wider bus stop environments must balance the needs of different users: bus passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, parked vehicles, street furniture, and utilities, often within constrained spaces. Department for Transport guidance stipulates that two metres must be left on the pavement for pedestrians to pass by a shelter.¹⁵ Introducing raised kerbs, hard standing, shelters, and real time passenger information (RTPI) units in already cluttered environments can require significant redesign, negotiation, and compromise.

5. Co-ordination with utilities and stakeholders

Installing or upgrading bus stops often requires collaboration with multiple partners, including utility providers, highways authorities, and transport operators. Utility works frequently delay upgrades, and resurfacing or kerb alignment projects may be undone by later maintenance, leading to rework and inefficiency. A lack of standardisation between councils, operators, and third-party contractors can create inconsistencies in accessibility features.

6. Regulatory and enforcement limitations

Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) are often required when making any changes to the surrounding road, pavement or kerb when upgrading bus stops, or managing parking restrictions near stops. These processes are slow, bureaucratic, and resource-intensive for councils, and require extensive consultation with various stakeholders. Delays in TRO approvals can stall entire accessibility programmes, particularly in urban areas with competing demands for road and footway space. Obstruction around bus stops can also reduce accessibility. Councils can designate bus stop clearways or introduce parking restrictions to address this. However, enforcement powers, or local authority capacity to action enforcement, are often limited.

7. Lack of consistent data and asset tracking

Many local authorities struggle to maintain up-to-date, centralised data on bus stop conditions and accessibility attributes. Without accurate asset tracking, it is difficult to prioritise upgrades or identify stops where accessibility interventions would have the greatest impact. The DfT central NaPTAN database does not yet include consistent accessibility metadata, limiting integrated planning.

References

13. Campaign for Better Transport (2025), Better Bus Stops: Setting a standard for printed passenger information (back to text)

14. Ibid. (back to text)

15. DfT (2021) (back to text)