S4 bus in Sutton gets four extra school-day journeys from November

Transport for London is adding four extra weekday journeys to the S4 bus in Sutton from 1 November, to ease crowding at school times.

The route runs between Waddon Marsh and Sutton. Under the new timetable, one additional bus will run in each direction in the morning peak and again in the afternoon peak, so there will be four more trips on every school day. The change starts once the autumn half-term break is over.

Why the S4 timetable is changing

For months, passengers have complained about packed buses and unreliable journeys. Their frustration grew after TfL cut daytime frequencies last year, when weekday and Saturday buses dropped from one every 20 minutes to one every 30. Residents said schoolchildren, older people and other vulnerable passengers were left with long waits, especially in bad weather.

Schools on the route raised the problem too. Oaks Park High School reported long delays for pupils, with queues at stops spilling onto private driveways. TfL’s Local Communities and Partnerships team then sat down with the Partnership of Sutton Secondary Schools and the borough to look at the shortfall.

TfL said its officials surveyed passenger numbers at the roadside and on board buses during school hours, and the results showed pupils needed more capacity. In letters to the local MP, it accepted that mechanical faults had made the crowding worse. It said it had found no wider capacity problem at other times of day and would keep monitoring how the route performs.

MP welcomes extra peak buses on the S4

Bobby Dean, the Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, campaigned with residents against last year’s cuts. He said more than 400 people had signed a petition calling for school-time services to be restored, and that “after months of pushing, TfL have finally listened.”

He said the cuts had caused a lot of frustration for children travelling to and from school, who were often unable to board crowded buses. West Sutton resident Margaret Reith had earlier called the frequency cut “counter-productive” for the community.