Reading Bus Lane Fines — PCNs, Income & Appeals

Reading's bus lane penalties peaked at 78,757 in 2021/22 and have fallen every year since — 58,384 in 2023/24, down 26% from the peak. Minster Street is the busiest single location in every year of the series, on its own accounting for 9,384 penalties in 2021/22. The council also publishes what enforcement costs to run: the bus lane operation's surplus ranged from £126,855 in the pandemic year 2020/21 to £1,695,252 in 2022/23.

Which streets issue the most fines

Camera-enforced bus lane locations ranked by PCNs issued in 2023/24. The last column is the 4-year total.

The rows above are the council's own “Bus Lane PCNs by Street” table, which it publishes in each Parking Services Annual Report — they are streets and sections, not a camera list, and the council does not say how many cameras cover them. Where the council counts several sections of one road separately (Vastern Road four ways, Trooper Potts Way both directions), they are combined here so each row matches one lane page. The Forbury's two rows are combined but not linked: this site tracks two Forbury restrictions (a 24-hour lane and a peak-hours lane) and the council's row names do not say which is which. The 2023/24 figure for Bath Road (Aldi) sits alongside 345 warning notices issued at no charge during the lane's statutory six-month warning period, which the council counts in its 58,384 headline total. Some lanes this site tracks in Reading — Gun Street, West Street, London Road, the A33 northbound lanes and the Oxford Road sections at Cheapside and Grovelands Road — have no row in the council's table for any year here.

Challenges & appeals — do they work?

Formal representations to the council, and appeals to the independent Traffic Penalty Tribunal. Drivers made 34,492 formal challenges over 4 years.

The council's own figures show the share of challenges upheld went from 16% in 2020/21 to 22% in 2023/24 — so a well-grounded challenge is worth making. Roughly one bus lane PCN in seven attracts a formal challenge (8,297 against 58,384 in 2023/24), and the council cancelled between 15% and 22% of challenged penalties in each year of the series. At the Traffic Penalty Tribunal the pattern varies sharply by year: in 2022/23 drivers won 27 of 118 appeals outright and the council chose not to contest another 40, while in 2023/24 only 10 of 127 were allowed but 52 went uncontested — in both years, more than half of tribunal appeals ended in the driver's favour one way or the other. See our guide to appealing a bus lane PCN for the grounds that win.