The back end of a London bus.

From the Transport for London commissioner's report in July:

In April 2013, a record-breaking week on London's bus network saw passenger numbers reach their highest level since before 1960. Approximately 49.5 million weekly journeys are now being made on London's bus network – around half the number of all bus journeys in England. The annual figure of around 2.3 billion passengers is 60 per cent above the levels that were seen as recently as 2000 and comes against the backdrop of London's continued population rise.

So what next for London's bus service as demand for it increases and the number of Londoners soars? It isn't very obvious. While rail transport has the glamour of Crossrail and the Mayor strives to persuade us that his "cycling revolution" claims will, belatedly, be justified, there's no conspicuous plan for enabling the form of public transport that carries by far the greatest numbers of passengers in the capital to carry even more.

It's tempting, if rather unfair, to say that that's because there is no plan at all. The London Assembly's transport committee, which is investigating the bus service, notes that while TfL predicts continuing growing demand its current business plan does not allow for the network to be increased to help meet it. The best TfL thinks it can do is to make the most efficient use of the existing network. Nothing wrong with greater efficiency, but will refining what we have be enough to keep the London bus show as we have come to know it on the road?

Those expressing doubts include one of the larger companies that operates the service. It has told the transport committee it is "frustrated" that TfL isn't investing more in the bus service and also by the attitudes of some boroughs, notably the more central ones.

The same operator said that countering the effects of rising road congestion is a growing problem. With the Mayor's own transport strategy anticipating a 14% increase in vehicle delays by 2031 (page 160, figure 42) and his more recent 2020 Vision admitting (page 29) that the problem remains, such complaints seem reasonable.

The capital's transport watchdog, London Travelwatch, has already made its submission to the committee. This includes making the case for giving buses greater priority on London's roads:

Congestion forecasts described in the Mayor's Transport Strategy will mean bus journey times will deteriorate unless bus services are protected from traffic congestion by means of bus priority or road pricing. The Mayor's Transport Strategy supports bus priority...at "critical locations". However, there has not been much evidence of the introduction of additional bus priority.

The ultimate boss of transport in London is, of course, Boris Johnson. Under his mayoralty, the cost of travelling by bus has risen much faster than it did under Ken Livingstone (however you do the sums). Johnson's focus has been on reducing the amount by which the service is subsidised, following a rise under Livingstone from £41m in 1999/2000 to £653m by the time he lost power. TfL thinks it will be down to £404m in 2014/15. Transport Times chief executive Professor David Begg has observed (page 65):

The challenges will be to prevent this cut in funding – as well as finding the future means to sustain even reduced funding – having a number of negative knock-on effects on the wider transport network as well as directly on low-income groups, who rely on buses most and who would be regressively affected by any significant rise in bus fares to make up the funding. The huge population and employment growth forecast in the capital inevitably means that transport demand overall will rise, as will congestion. With no further commitment to congestion charging, road congestion risks undermining the operational reliability of the bus network and with TfL operating on the basis that the bus network will remain in its current size and shape, there will be no extra bus capacity to help reduce congestion itself or to play a larger role in absorbing this increased demand.

Not very heartening, is it? And all the more perturbing given the huge improvements that have come before. Professor Begg again:

London buses must rank as one of the capital's greatest success stories...London is ranked top city in the world by Imperial College that benchmarks bus provision in London against a number of other world cities: Barcelona, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, Montreal, New York, Paris, Sydney and Vancouver... The success of London's buses is best reflected in the statistic that shows London now accounts for 50% of all bus journeys in the Uk, up from 40% in 2000...Between 2003 and 2010 there was an impressive 7% modal shift towards buses due to the growth in the number of buses and the performance of the bus network.

We need more growth, more modal shift and still better performance by giving buses greater priority on the roads. For now, I don't fancy our chances.