LT's 1982 surplus
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A net surplus of £0.5m would have been achieved if the Greater London Council had not decided to reduce the LT revenue support grant to produce a break-even figure.
Scheduled bus mileage was reduced from 200m to 174m miles because of the drop in demand after fares doubled just before the start of the financial year.
Total bus traffic revenue for 1982 was £206m (1173m in 1981). To this was added £46.2m concessionary fares reimbursement, £2.4m specific route support grant from the GLC and £2.4m from other local authori Bus servicing, repairs and maintenance cost £86.5m (178.8m in 1981). LT paid 11.8m in revenue support to other operators (12.1m in 1981). Total expenditure was £414m resulting in a bus deficit of 1155m before the allocation of GLC grants.
Total bus miles operated were slightly less than budgeted for (164m) because of traffic congestion during the rail strikes.
The average cost per bus mile increased from 218.9p to 250.3p and the average passenger revenue per bus mile was 154.4p. The operational bus fleet dropped from 5,609 to 4,854 and LT owns about 745 buses currently awaiting disposal.
New buses delivered during the year included 75 MCW Metrobuses and 280 Leyland Titans, bringing the fleet strength of these types to 805 Metrobuses and 676 Titans. The total number of buses scheduled for peak operation was 4,291 of which 2,001 are one-man operated.
During the year, LT earned £176,000 of private hire revenue although virtually all this work was sub-contracted to other operators and the contribution to the revenue account was only £20,000.
Competition from coaches on commuter service is said to have increased congestion and abstracted about Elm from LT short distance journeys between' mainline stations and longer distance Underground lines.