Poor public transport explains the UK’s productivity puzzle

And since buses are by far the largest mode of public transport in Birmingham, this is likely to have significantly higher impact there than in Lyon; in the latter, the largest mode of public transport is the metro, which delivers reliable journey times no matter the time of day. For example, by examining six months of journeys on the buses, we calculate that, at off-peak times a person five miles from Birmingham in West Bromwich is part of the Birmingham agglomeration. Our hypothesis is that, by relying on buses that get caught in congestion at peak times for public transport, Birmingham sacrifices significant size and thus agglomeration benefits to cities like Lyon, which rely on trams and metros.

Source: www.citymetric.com