Boris Bendy Jihad Update

CRIKEY!

From the Evening Standard, London, 24th October 2008

LONDON'S new Routemaster bus will operate on a scale far wider than expected but the much-hyped public competition to design it is a sideshow, according to a senior Transport for London manager. As the Mayor, Boris Johnson, prepares to unveil the results of the competition, it has emerged that TfL will order up to 800 of the open-platform new Routemasters, almost double the expected number. They will serve all central London's busiest routes, not just bendy routes.

The design contest has attracted around 470 entries, including one from Norman Foster. But David Hampson-Ghani, TfL's programme manager for new buses, said it was seen inside TfL as "almost a consultation" to the key effort, talks with the manufacturers. "The key objective is to replace the current buses that are used on central London's busiest bus routes," said Mr Hampson-Ghani in a recent presentation to the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport obtained by the Standard. "It's not about replacing bendy buses, it's about replacing whatever is operating at the moment and that may include bendy buses.

"We will simply hand over a folder of the winning designs [from the competition] to whoever wins the manufacturing tender and say: 'See what you can do with these.' The ultimate aim is to have a single manufacturer who will work up the design, prototype it and then build it." Conductor operation and an open platform, however, are non-negotiable. An invitation to tender will be issued in February 2009 and a contract for a "prototype and initial service vehicles" will be awarded next October. Mr Hampson-Ghani said the order would be for "700 to 800 vehicles over a three-year period". TfL had been in talks with the Department for Transport and the EU, he said, and had reached tentative agreement that regulations do allow an open-platform bus. "We already have buses like that on the roads today."

It had been thought that the major manufacturers were lukewarm about the scheme. "If you speak to the manufacturers privately, they'll tell you that making a vehicle like that is no longer possible in this day and age," said Robert Jack, managing editor of Transit magazine. However, both publicly and in private, Britain's two largest bus manufacturers expressed strong enthusiasm to the Standard. "TfL has been in contact and we are very interested," said a spokesman for Ballymena-based Wrightbus. Earlier this month TfL's head, Peter Hendy, visited the company's Northern Ireland plant to discuss the Routemaster and other projects.
"We are going to be all systems go. There is a solution there without a doubt," said a spokesman for Falkirk-based Alexander Dennis. "If London wants a Routemaster, we are going to be delighted to oblige." Chief executive Colin Robertson said his 80-strong engineering team was devoting increasing amounts of time to the project: "There is a good chance we could come up with a new design. We want to keep our top-dog position [in London] when it comes to the Routemaster."


"I now backing Obama!"

The new Routemaster is almost certain to use a hybrid drive, where a diesel engine powers batteries which run the bus, making it dramatically cleaner than existing bendy and double-deck buses. A conventional hybrid double-decker will be unveiled by Alexander Dennis at the bus industry's main annual trade fair next month. The order of up to 800 Routemasters is far more than needed to replace the bendy routes, which need 350 buses to operate them. It offers the prospect of being able to build the buses at a lower cost per unit than a smaller run.

If no major manufacturer is willing to make the buses, one industry expert said others could easily step forward. "Making a bus is not an expensive production-line job with robots and the like," says Hilton Holloway, news editor of Autocar magazine, which produced its own Routemaster design last year. "Compared to volume cars it is crude a bit of a cottage industry, with a lot of fabrication. Some of the new Routemaster designs are pretty radical but the majors have been making buses the same way for a hundred years. They might not be the best people to do this." Opposition members of the London Assembly have criticised the drive to introduce a new Routemaster. Val Shawcross, Labour chair of the assembly's transport committee, said the Mayor was "letting his personal prejudice override any sense of reason and should return the drawing board as soon as possible".

However, the new bus does appear to have caught the public imagination. Rukaiya Russell, a house music artist from New Cross, has released a track called Bring Back the Routemaster. The rap includes the ding-ding of a Routemaster's bell and the shouting-out of all the RM route numbers swept away in Ken Livingstone's cull of 2003-5. "Walking around central London one day, I just thought how I missed jumping on and off down Oxford Street, and I found myself singing 'Bring back the Routemaster'," says Russell on her MySpace site.

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/bend-it-like-boris.html


Boris Johnson on a Routemaster

Free London!

Bendy the Free Bus

The Bendy Buses in London have sparked heated debates. These are the 18 meter (60 feet) long articulated buses which have replaced the older double deckers on many routes. There are two arguments in their favour; a greater passenger capacity as they can carry 149 as opposed to 79 on traditional double deck buses so they can offer greater capacity on routes in the central area, particularly at peak periods, and they are easier for access having level floors and low thresholds. I have an open mind on Bendy Buses in London as they answer the real problem of making buses available to people with mobility impairments. These are 10% of the general population but are probably a higher proportion of Central London bus users due to the implausibility of using and parking cars in Central London and the restricted access on the Underground. However there is a general consensus emerging that with three sets of doors and (like all London buses) no cash fares a lot of people ride for free.

Figures recently released under the Freedom of Information Act and reported in the media in mid-March 2008 show bus fare evasion costs London more than £50 million a year. The figures show a rise of more than £5 million from the previous year and have almost doubled since 2005/2006. The problem is worst on bendy buses, where an estimated one in 10 passengers do not pay, costing £6.4 million this financial year. On other buses, 3.4 per cent do not pay, costing Transport for London £45.9 million a year.


Imagine my surprise then today getting on the No. 18 bus at Euston towards Baker Street and Sudbury Town. Some suggest that there are a lot of empty bus seats going around London but this was one crowded bus with passengers standing and passengers with push chairs and luggage so not much room to move around. Both Oyster ticket readers on the rear section of the bus were out of order so cards could not be read which meant everybody on that section (even those who wanted to pay) was in fact travelling for free. Was there a stream of passengers going through the connecting turntable to the front two doors to use the ticket readers there? Well, on a crowded bus, surprisingly no! But even if they had done so they would have found that these two readers were also out of action. So on this crowded bus full to capacity the only fare income was the people who got on by the front door and used the ticket reader by the driver’s position, as 4 out of the 5 ticket readers on this bus were out of action meaning most people were enjoying this scenic tour of the beautiful Euston Road for free.

So on behalf of the “Free London Campaign” take a bow route No. 18, the operator FirstBus and the star of this piece; Bendy Bus EA11026. Tourists and Natives alike applaud your generosity!