E16 Epsom-Worcester Park bus route to close

The E16 bus route between Epsom and Worcester Park will be discontinued on April 3, Transport for London (TfL) have revealed.

The news was circulated in TfL's London Service Permit Bulletin on Monday (January 13).

The popular E16 route starts at Epsom Clock tower and moves via Stoneleigh to Worcester Park and back again in a loop.

The line runs from 7.20am-5.30pm (clockwise loop) and 9am-6.40pm (anticlockwise loop) during the week, with a slightly modified timetable during the weekends.

The announcement of the news in the TfL bulletin read:

"Route E16 (Epsom - Worcester Park).

"The service will be withdrawn from 4 April 2020 - the last day of operation will be April 3, 2020."

While the news was publicized in Transport for London's own bulletin, the London-specific transport service do not operate the line directly.

TfL said the E16 is operated by a separate company called Quality Line RATP Group, who have a bus depot on Richmond way in Epsom.

Image via DoT

According to government statistics, bus use in general is declining.

The most recent batch of data about bus usage in the England and London specifically showed that less people overall are now using buses than was the case a year ago.

For the year ending March 2019, the number of local bus passenger journeys in England was 4.31 billion, a 1.0 per cent decrease, according to the Department of Transport.

Over the same period bus usage in London decreased by 1.2 per cent, and in England outside London it was down by 0.7 per cent.

Meanwhile, bus prices are also on the rise.

That's according to the government's figures on bus usage between 2005 and 2019.

"Local bus fares in England increased by 77 per cent on average between March 2005 and March 2019.

"Bus fares have risen at a faster rate in metropolitan areas (93 per cent) than in non-metropolitan areas (67 per cent)," a Department of Transport statistics review document read.

Quality Line RATP Group were contacted for comment.