New Routemaster - competition winners

And it looks mint too!

I am a huge fan of getting the Routemasters back on the streets of London, and we look to be a very serious step closer now....

I think the plan is rather flawed - how many bus builders are going to be interested in building a product for a small market? Whereas a standard bus (say a Volvo B9/Gemini) can be converted to "London" spec pretty easily by adding a second door and changing the screens, it's a specially designed bus which will probably not sell well outwith London.

The capacity is stupid - 66 passengers and 14 standing? A normal standard double decker seats about 83 with another 21 standing! Surely this will just mean more buses required for the same capacity - hence, higher costs?

Presumably when TfL tender the contract they will request that the tenderer uses the new RM bus.

Whilst I totally agree that bendy buses are not right for London, and that this re-inventing the Routemaster plan is daft, it should be remembered the two are completely separate issues.

I don't profess to know what is or has been allocated to every route in London, but the bendy buses on routes 25, 436 and the Red Arrow routes, for example, were never a direct replacement for Routemasters. Most people seem to conveniently forget that actually, the vast majority of bendy buses were never a direct replacement for Routemasters.

I agree that the 'new routemaster' is not a good idea, because they will cost more to build and to run, but I think there are routes that the bendy buses can be used on, it is just that people weren't used to having to stand on buses all the time, and that bendy buses have more accidents than double deckers is not true.

Bendy buses replaced Routemasters on the 12, 38 and 73.

Exactly - many people seem to gloss over the fact that bendy buses have been in use in the UK since the early 1980s! They work particularly well on routes with a low average journey time, and high volumes.

Original Routemasters:
RM - 64 seats (38 upstairs, 26 down)
RML - 72 seats (42 upstairs, 30 down)

Modern buses:
Citaro bendy bus - 49 seats
First London Enviro 400 - 67 seats (41 upstairs, 26 down)

I don't know the standing capacity. New London double deckers are always the shorter version now, and the centre doors and wheelchair/standing space means there are not that many seats downstairs on buses. Some buses only have 19 seats downstairs now!

It's not the operator, it is TfL who say that new double deckers need to be the shorter version, and how many seats they have. TfL have made lots other of rules on new buses, including the destination display - it should only show the destination and route number, not via points, and they can't have electronic displays, buses on TfL routes have to have blinds.

London is a big place, and to make such a generalisation about the whole city is simplistic.

I think the Uxbridge Road, for example, is very suitable for bendy buses - it's long, straight, serves areas outside tube station catchments, and has high numbers of passengers. Plus there is severe congestion through Acton, and the alternative to bendy buses is inevitably more buses, which aint going to help. The red arrow routes likewise, particularly the 507, seem ideally suited to bendys.

On the other hand I do scratch my head about the wisdom of the 453 snaking around Great Portland Street; though perhaps it just needs a better route? The 73 and 38 were just a step too far IMO, and probably the routes most complainers are thinking of.

My main concern about both the bendy-jihad and the vanity routemaster is that they will cost us dearly. The sums stack up to something like £300m in one-off costs, plus an annual hit of at least £100m. The evidence suggests it'll be ordinary fare payers covering the cost of these shenanigans. I'd expect oyster bus fares to be going to £1.50 in 12 months time, plus further massive hikes on the tube. The money's got to come from somewhere, and it's not going to be the frozen council tax or the scrapped congestion charge.

I agree that the 207, 507 and 521 are good routes to have them on. There are 31 Citaros on the Red Arrows, and they will be replaced by about 50 'standee single deckers' next year.

The 50 bendys on the 38 will be replaced with over 70 double deckers next year - and the route already runs about every 2 minutes in the peaks!
The 73s cause problems at Euston. I missed a 205 once because it had to stop behind a 73 and I didn't see it.
Another thing I was thinking about is that Victoria bus station was rebuilt for the three bendy bus routes that terminate there 38, 73 and one of the Red Arrow routes - I can't remember what one is what number), and next year, to of those routes will have new buses. Will the bus station have to be rebuilt again?

Central London wasn't built for motorised vehicles of any kind. Why don't we ban them all?

As do any vehicle!
But far less than providing the equivalent capacity on multiple buses of any other type.

This policy has little to do with bus type - and TFL are planning to allow all door boarding on the single decker replacements for all ex-bendy routes. The answer to revenue evasion is nothing to do with bus type and everything to do with enforcement.

The arguments against bendys are weak and romanticised. Actually they're cheap and reliable for the capacity provided, albeit not appropriate everywhere.

True, London did congeal rather than grow, but the size of wagons that it congealed with isn't that far off the size of eg transits, so it's only longer vehicles that are the problem...



Not true, the second bus can wait until there is a gap for it to fit into, rather than trailing accross the road it is crossing. Also there is the issue of sideways movement. Bendy busses seem to need a lot more sideways room to make a curve, so will often prevent use of two lanes where a conventional bus will only occupy one


Disagree - two busses will take up more length, but that length can be broken up to allow crossing traffic to filter between them. Also the sideways issue is a big one as they will block multiple lanes in a lot of locations, which aside from sheer volume, can also foul up filter lanes etc.



True that all-door boarding is an issue, but the back door of a bendy bus is sufficiently far enough away to prevent any guilt-pressure from the driver to count.



No they aren't.
Bendys do provide more capacity, but query if a non-standard fleet are cheaper. As for reliability, I do remember unions making a fuss about them catching fire when they were introduced, which seemed to tail off when we got a Tory mayor - politicised?
Also, they kill around twice as many cyclists per operational mile than ordinary busses and cause more congestion than other busses.

It is route 207. The 18 is Euston - Sudbury via Paddington and Wembley.

Tramlink also has all door boarding, with no ticket barriers, and most DLR stations don't have ticket barriers either. Why is it that everyone says this about the bendy buses, and not Tramlink and DLR? Although it is a problem, I think that people are exagerating it because they don't like the bendy buses. Also, it is a problem with the policy, not the type of bus used.

Also, it is a problem with the policy, not the type of bus used.[/quote]

Buffoon Johnson wasn't elected to get rid of bendies, he doesn't like them because RedKen did.

I agree that a lot of the points raised on this issue are completely valid and the overriding one is that parts of Central London just aren't suitable for vehicles of this size.
Getting rid of the bendies will cost us all more money, the Operators will have to employ more drivers for more buses - which negates the congestion issue anyway - but a solution may lie in using bendies to transport punters to stations outside the 'central' area and allow them to transfer to more 'suitable' forms of transport - a la the 18 which terminates at Euston.

Using the 73 & 38 to cross the middle is pointless, it should terminate on the East/North East side of town - say Shoreditch for example - and then beef up the links from there to the central area.
The 25 for example terminates in Oxford St, it could end at Holborn where the traffic density is less and it can spin at Holborn Circus to go back.

Point is, the bendies are a useful tool to move high volumes of people, but we should have outer hubs to prevent these inappropriate vehicles going on to streets where they create more harm than good.

A point about 'Routemasters'; as an ex-TfL Revenue Inspector, I have been on RM's on a Saturday night and went upstairs to find a dozen people with no tickets and on questioning the conductor - prior to sticking them on for delayed fare collection - a common answer would be that they were scared to go onto the upper deck at night for fear of assault.
As bus/train drivers, we have the protection of our cabs/assault screens if we feel threatened - where is the place of safety for a conductor?

Ask yourself, before the clamour for the new RM reaches a crescendo, would you do the job of a conductor in this day and age?