Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Thursday

the 25th of December and it may be that if you like me don't own a car and want to travel around

your local area well have a look out of the window.

There may be a bus running.

That's because the Confederation of Passenger Transport, the CPT, believes that we are going to

see the most buses that have run on Christmas Day for a decade.

You'll be aware that, of course, the entire rail network shuts down for the day.

Long-distance coaches are still running and there's a lot of flights happening at Britain's airports.

But finding a bus running is really quite something.

To find out more, I'm talking to Graham Vedler. He is the

chief executive of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, CPT. Graham, I need to say, I'm contractually

obliged to say, happy Christmas. Had a very Christmas to you, Simon, and all your listeners.

Tell me what's been going on that has led you

to make this claim. This is straightforwardly watching what bus operators and coach operators up and down

the country are doing. They're seeing increasing demands to travel on Christmas Day, whether it's

people going to work, people going to visit relatives, people go into the airport,

and they're putting on more services in response.

Now, it's important to note that most of us services won't be running on Christmas Day,

but an increasing number will be running on reduced timetables.

And this year we expect to carry more than 100,000 people on local buses on Christmas Day.

Where are these going to be running?

Because, for example, I live in London.

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