Buses in the time of Covid

 


Covid 19 and the Bus and Coach Industry by Glynne Stewart Pegg 

North Riding Classic Bus. £14.99 ISBN 978-183841687-4

This book covers the effect of Covid 19 on the Bus and Coach industry from 2020 to 2023. It is “profusely illustrated” (as they used to say) and this makes it a valuable document of a time which already seems to be vanishing from our collective memory. Photos showing hand sanitizer bottles on buses, signs saying “keep your distance” and warnings not to talk to the masked driver already look like stills from a science fiction movie.

Glynne Stewart Pegg was an economist, industry historian and part time bus and coach driver throughout lockdown. Ironically, he had been due to make a work visit to bus manufacturers in Wuhan in January 2020 but was advised to delay his journey as the first news of Covid was acknowledged. The first UK death from Covid was announced in March 2020, and this was quickly followed by full lockdown.

Pegg wrote the first edition of the book while working as a driver for “keyworkers” as the first vaccination programme was being rolled out. He recalls the changing public mood, from feeling that we had been living through a “historical blip” in 2021, to acceptance of “the new normal” with the emergence of new strains. The second edition of the book was written in May 2023 as the World Health Organisation declared that Covid was no longer a global emergency. 

Pegg deals with the effect on the diverse bus and coach industries. While the largely national bus sector was able to readjust to transporting “key workers” and subsidised routes,  the more localised coach tour industry saw its trade wiped out overnight. 



Writing about the London Bus scene Pegg reminds us that, “the most devastating impact was through the loss of life of drivers and …there were a disproportionately high number of staff from the Black, Asian and Minority staff who were affected by the new virus. Subsequent research has shown that bus drivers are 3.5 times more likely to die from the new virus than workers in other roles.” Over 100 bus workers died in London with most of them being drivers. 

Other effect noted included the sudden shift in demand and pricing for bicycles: “the average price of a bicycle rose by more than 25% (as demand soared), the average price of a bike went from £285 in April 2020 to £365 in September.”

Although schools returned in September 2020, passenger levels remained at 60% of pre-Covid levels. November “circuit-breaker” lockdown took levels down to 45%, and the third lockdown in 2021 saw schools closed once more. “reduced schedules to meet the needs of key workers…(meant) uncertainty for many bus operators and staff.”

Meanwhile the coach tour industry was devastated by lockdown, with many family firms, already existing on tight margins, going out of business. The loss of cashflow, needed to repay the finance payments on coaches, forced the closure of national firms such as Shearings. This had a knock-on effect on the UK coach manufacturing industry with contracts being delayed or cancelled, but government support schemes did help them to survive.   The writer lists 43 different schemes that were introduced to help business survive or recover from lockdown. 

Pegg closes by asking is there a future for the bus? Passenger numbers had been in decline since the 1950’s but Covid hastened change with the shift to home working and home deliveries. However, he hopes that the acceptance by the young of the realities of global warming could lead to a revival of public transport particularly if it is safe, clean and socially responsible.


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