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Empty Buses: How Public Transit Navigates a Crossroads of an Era

Jun 25, 08:11 AM · Ming Que / The Paper · 1 reads

Empty Buses: How Public Transit Navigates a Crossroads of an Era

Taking the bus is like spending one or two yuan to walk into a "moving street-view cinema" to watch a movie. But in many places, the occupancy rate of this cinema is getting lower and lower.

On June 12, 2025, the Ministry of Transport released its "2024 Statistical Bulletin on the Development of the Transportation Industry," stating that the national public bus and trolleybus passenger volume in 2024 was 38.67 billion person-trips, a year-on-year increase of 1.6%. However, compared with 76.54 billion person-trips in 2015, it has dropped by about half over the past decade. Looking at the composition of urban passenger volume, the share of public bus and trolleybus passenger volume fell from 58.7% in 2015 to 36.2% in 2024.

In public discourse, the decline in bus passenger volume is attributed to multiple factors, such as the development of urban rail transit, the proliferation of private cars and ride-hailing services, and the spread of electric bicycles.

The decline of buses is even more pronounced in some large cities. Recently, attention-grabbing data came from the "2025 Guangzhou Transport Development Annual Report" released at the end of May this year. The report shows that Guangzhou's conventional bus ridership dropped sharply from 6.11 million person-trips per day in 2019 to 2.49 million person-trips per day in 2025 — a decline of 59%. Meanwhile, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the number of private cars in Guangzhou increased by 66.6%, the share of e-bike trips rose to 17.9%, and ride-hailing services grew by 73%. Citizens increasingly favor flexible, autonomous, and instant-response modes of travel.

Once the backbone of urban public transportation, buses now often appear "empty and desolate," seemingly becoming bystanders of the era.

Bus in city street

Professor Lu Huapu, director of the Institute of Transportation at Tsinghua University, noted that urban public transportation plays a role in ensuring basic mobility, easing congestion, conserving energy and reducing emissions, and promoting social equity. However, in recent years, due to declining ridership and shrinking subsidies, multiple cities have reported incidents of bus companies failing to pay wages, suspending operations, and canceling routes.

Recently, we interviewed bus drivers, passengers, and transit enthusiasts in Lipu (Guangxi), Zhengzhou (Henan), and Hangzhou (Zhejiang) to capture perspectives on the ongoing "bus revolution." One consensus emerged: buses will not disappear, but they must change.

The Plight of County-Level Bus Services

On Sunday, April 26, 2026, the temperature in Lipu City — a county-level city under Guilin, Guangxi — ranged between 21 and 29°C. Summer had not yet begun, but the weather was already muggy.

At 6 a.m., bus driver Li Yongguang finished his breakfast, climbed into the driver's seat, and started the direct bus from downtown Lipu to Dongchang Town. The one-way trip was over ten kilometers, the fare was 4 yuan, and a bus departed approximately every 20 minutes.

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车子途经高楼林立的城区时，不时有人上上下下。很快，车子颠簸着驶出城区时，只剩下几位老人，车内变得安静起来，只剩下播报停站点的信息。车外是一片片知了声声的绿色树木。

李永光说，荔浦市没有地铁，但这些年，当地人买了汽车、电动自行车，很多人不再乘坐公交车了，主要的乘客是老人和学生。

这条公交线路，将近50岁的李永光曾来回开了无数遍，他以为可以一直跑下去，直到那份停运公告出现。

Bus driver at work

2025年9月27日，广西荔浦市三家城乡公共客运公司发布告示称，受客流下滑、运营成本上涨、财政补贴不能及时足额到位等影响，他们无力支付车辆保险购置费用，决定从2025年9月29日起暂停所有公交线路运营。

舆论很快发酵，荔浦市交通运输局办公室工作人员接受媒体采访时称，在积极沟通协调；荔浦市财政局工作人员称，关于民生的问题，政府非常重视，一定会全力解决。发布停运告示的第二天，2025年9月28日下午，三家公司再次发布公告称，在未按规定向主管部门报告的情况下，自行发布了暂停运营的告示，深表歉意，荔浦城乡公交所有线路保持正常运营，不会停运。

虽然停运并未发生，但凸显的问题依然存在，李永光开始忧心起自己的未来。