‘Thumbs up for buses’ say Cheshire East residents

Overall satisfaction with bus journeys in Cheshire East rose to 90% in 2025, up from 88% in 2024 and 83% in 2023, continuing a positive upward trend over the last three years.

The 2025 result reported in the latest Your Bus Journey survey places Cheshire East eighth out of 43 local authority areas across England, improving on its ninth place ranking in 2024. The borough’s satisfaction score is higher than both the average for semi rural areas (88%) and the England average (85%).

Recently, work delivered through the council’s Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) has focused on making bus travel more convenient, reliable and accessible for all passengers. 

This has included improving service frequency on key routes, investing in bus stop improvements, reducing waiting times, improving accessibility for passengers and strengthening the quality and availability of information to help people plan their journeys more easily.

Councillor Mark Goldsmith, chair of Cheshire East Council’s highways and transport committee, said:

“It’s very encouraging to see such positive feedback. Passenger satisfaction is continuing to rise year on year and surveys like this help us understand what is making a real difference to people’s journeys. 

“Passenger feedback has already helped us significantly through the development of our Bus Service Improvement Plans and these results are a further demonstration of what is working well and where improvements can still be made.”

Councillor Lata Anderson, Cheshire East Council’s buses member champion, said:

“As a largely rural borough, providing reliable and accessible bus services can be more challenging. 

“So, it is extremely encouraging that the latest annual review of bus journey satisfaction shows that our work with operators to meet the needs of communities across towns, villages and rural areas is being recognised.”

Passengers rated Cheshire East higher than the national average across all six headline measures, including punctuality, waiting time, journey length, bus stops and overall journey experience. Satisfaction levels were also equal to or above the semi rural average for every measure.

Results show improvements on 2024 scores for almost all headline measures, with particularly strong satisfaction levels for bus drivers, which remained at 91%, matching last year’s high score.

Passenger satisfaction in Cheshire East was broadly consistent across different age groups and journey types. While satisfaction among 26–64 year olds and peak time travellers was slightly lower than in 2024, both groups still recorded higher scores than in 2023.