Dear All,

Last Friday Jason Perry wrote me an email responding to the petition regarding the 433 bus route. According to the email, in May there will be 3 brand new buses for the route 433.

However, as we all know, this is unlikely to improve the service due to the bus schedule still not being up to date on weekdays and weekends. I did believe for a while in March and April that the bus service got better, yet it is now reverting back to not waiting at East Croydon until the scheduled time on my most recent trips.

I would appreciate any support you can give. If you are waiting at a bus stop and the bus hasn't come along on time, or if you have been waiting for ages, please let the people around you know about this petition. Tell your friends and family so we can grow our numbers and force a real change.

(Unfortunately I can’t post the screenshots of the email here due to it not loading, so I have copied and pasted his email below):

Dear Michael

Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding the reliability of the 433 route, and well done on taking action to start a petition about this issue.

As you requested, I have raised this matter with our contacts at TfL to review, and have received the response copied  below from them:

“Thanks for your email. I have asked our Performance colleagues to review the last 12 months of performance on the 433.

For this route which operates as a high frequency service we review performance based on 2 core metrics. In each of the metrics highlighted, these are benchmarked against a Minimum Performance Standard (MPS) with all figures based on four weeks of data. 

The EWT provides insight into how long passengers would wait beyond general ‘Scheduled Waiting Time’ (SWT) which for this route would be 1 minute. SWT is the time passengers would wait, on average, if the service ran exactly as scheduled during the periods observed. Whereas the mileage operated is benchmarked against a target of service performance for the fleet.

Broadly speaking the route has been a good performer only failing to meet the MPS (Minimum Performance Standard) three times in the last 13 periods (12 months).

Excess Wait Time (mins) – MPS = 1 min
Operated Mileage (%) – MPS = 98%
Period 9 (2024/25) – 1.16
Period 9 (2025/26) – 1.55
Period 11 (2025/26) – 1.05
 

Operated Mileage:

The route does however struggle with mechanical lost mileage due to the use of older single deck vehicles. This is expected to improve when the new contract for the route begins in May when these vehicles are being replaced by 3 brand new vehicles and 9 2025 built vehicles. Between P10 – P12, the highest lost mileage occurred in the areas around both East Croydon and New Addington in part a consequence of Tram track replacement (Kent Gateway) and utility/road works which have been impactful through the route corridor.”

I hope that the information provided above by TfL and the improvements that should be delivered when the new vehicles are brought into operation in the summer addresses the concerns you have raised and would like to thank you again for writing to me on this matter.

Yours sincerely  

Mayor Jason Perry  

Executive Mayor of Croydon