Bosses of the firm which runs almost all of Bristol's buses have defended the company after it in a year.
First Bus West of England's to the end of March 2019, sparking a backlash on social media from passengers.
But the firm said the profit figure - believed to be a record for the company - was necessary to enable them to attract investment into their company, which they can spend on getting better, less polluting buses.
First's commercial director Rob Pymm said profit figures equate to 'a few pence per passenger journey'. With 70 million journeys in that 12-month period, the figure equates to roughly an average of 7.7p profit for First every time someone buys a ticket from the driver or scans their phone's bus app ticket.
And Mr Pymm said the profit the firm is making was actually below average for other bus companies nationally.
“While £5.4m sounds like a large sum, it actually equates to a few pence per passenger journey," he said.
"Benchmarking against other bus companies’ accounts show that our margin is well below peer group averages.
“It is Bristol’s passenger growth rate which has really set us apart from other areas of the country.
“However, we need to make sustainable returns to enable us to continue to attract investment into our Bristol and wider West of England fleet, rather than the money being allocated elsewhere, as all cities have similar agendas for growing bus patronage and meeting congestion and pollution challenges," he added.
The 12-month period in which First Bus West of England made its record profits was a turbulent time for the bus company.
It had , with chaos on the buses from mid-September for around two months, due to a number of factors.
That period then saw the introduction - in the November of 2018 - of a 'flat fare' which increased the cost of short-distance journeys of under three miles, but cut the price for longer journeys. The popular 'three-stop-hop' ticket also went up from £1 to £1.20.
Fares went up again, in the July of 2019, but that was after the end of the accounting year these figures cover.
“We want our customers to get the new, environmentally friendly buses and best value services they deserve, and we can only do that by making sustainable returns that will keep funding future investment," added Mr Pymm.
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