Welsh Access to Buses Indicator: Built Up Areas

This purpose of this website is to provide insight into the availability of public bus services across Wales. It presents an interactive map displaying a detailed and meaningful measure of public bus service levels as experienced by Welsh residents. At the core of this website are 98,000 postcode level scores of public bus provision, recorded in 2019, 2021, and 2023. These "WABI" sores represent a robust, reproducible, and data-derived measure of bus availability. Individual postcode scores are seen directly and may be queried when the map is zoomed to its maximum level. At this level the locations of bus stops and the frequency of bus departures may also be queried.

Postcode level detail becomes overwhelming at broader scales, so as the map is zoomed out the WABI scores are aggregated and mapped within the borders of the Office for National Statistics' Built Up Areas. This presents a visualisation of Bus Service provision within the limits of Villages, Towns and Cities of Wales which are identified through their common place names. Scores reporting the average number of bus departures per hour may be queried for any built up area along with its population estimate, and number of postcode WABI values upon which this estimate is deriived.

By providing information on bus service levels over three dates and for various timeframes of interest (e.g. daytime, evening and weekends) the website aims to a develop a better understanding of bus transport provision in and across Wales, helping users to identify where inequalities in provision may be present and highlighting where future improvements may be most needed.