New Routemaster: The first verdict
Post categories: Accessibility, Boris Johnson, Buses, City Hall, Oyster card, Transport for London
| 16:19 UK time, Thursday, 11 November 2010
What I saw today at the Acton Transport Museum Depot was - give or take a few tweaks - what we'll be seeing on the streets of London in 2012.
On first impressions the new (and as yet, unnamed) bus has a familiar modern shape at the front. But going to the back, the spirit of the Routemaster is there with the open platform at the rear, and the curve up to the roof on top.
Have a look at the gallery. By the way, it really is red. The lighting turned it orange!
But this bus for all its sleek design has to function as a bus.
It will carry 87 passengers far fewer than the 150 capacity that a bendy bus has, but the project team behind 'A New Bus for London' were at pains to say the new bus isn't a 'Bendy Bus Killer'.
Going inside, I was struck by the space - a far cry from the cramped conditions of the old Routemaster. With three doors including the open platform, and two staircases it seems designers have sacrificed seating for access. Though they have worked in space for disabled passengers.
You can enter through any door as you can with a Bendy, swipe your oyster and if you go upstairs you'll find another similarity with the Routemaster - the lack of head room.
All in all though, it's impressive and also ticks a lot of environmental boxes with its carbon emissions 40% less than a conventional diesel bus.
But can we afford it, especially with hard financial times ahead? Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy thinks we can in an interview with me at the depot.
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So, what say you? Do we need this new bus? Should TfL be spending money on it? And what should it be called?!
So far we've had suggestions for the Olympic Bus, the Cosmo, The Londoner, the Route King and the Swoosh.
A lot of you came up with one that my colleague on TV, Alice Bhandhukravi put to the Mayor - was it going to be called the BorisBus.
Boris replied that we should ask our viewers what it should be named.
Though he may well think again before reinventing anymore transport modes beginning with 'B'.
Over to you.
Tweet me @SteveKPhillips
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~57~RS~)
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There are three areas where information seems to be lacking with Boris's new bus. The first is how many passengers are seated. All upstairs, but how many downstairs. The current generation of London buses seat only around 22 downstairs. With one extra staircase and one extra door the new bus will only seat about 14 downstairs unless it is longer than the current vehicles. The second point is the open rear platform. In these days of people suing for injuries it would seem that this is a daring step. I wonder just how much such a vehicle would cost for personal accident insurance as opposed to a conventional vehicle. The third point is that the bus seems doomed to be a London special with no appeal to the operators outside. This is bound to affect its initial cost. Also this would mean that the bus would have very little resale value so it would have to be depreciated to zero in the financial books during its London career.
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A new name for the new Routemaster Bus.
How about the "de Pfeffel Bus"
Boris's middle name!
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This bus is beautiful. I think it will become a much loved and iconic part of our city. Call it "The Londoner".
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1. At 6:13pm on 11 Nov 2010, wjps wrote:
The third point is that the bus seems doomed to be a London special with no appeal to the operators outside. This is bound to affect its initial cost. Also this would mean that the bus would have very little resale value so it would have to be depreciated to zero in the financial books during its London career.
Well spotted wjps. This project is doomed to fail for the following reasons:
1) Would an open platform even get official approval in these litigious days? Imagine the publicity when (not if) the first fatality occurs. But wait - the open platform has doors which can be closed when needed. Guess what.. You can already buy buses with doors for about 15% of the cost.
2) A driver and conductor? Totally uneconomic
3) There will be no interest from operators outside London because of points 1) and 2) The vehicles will have zero resale value, which would have to be factored in to the costs of operation, making a BorisMaster many orders of magnitude more expensive to operate than a conventional bus. London bus contracts run for 5 years. Would you depreciate this fleet over 5 years? Or alternatively keep them in service for 25 years, thus making a mockery of the present tendering system.
4) The suggestion that all 8000 double deck buses in London could be replaced with these things is laughable given the economics involved. Fares would have to skyrocket or services slashed to make them viable. They might work on a few central London routes, but it is an awfully big investment for a production run of a few dozen.
It is a vanity project no less. It is appropriate that the launch was at the London Transport Museum's reserve collection. This is where the prototypes will end up. Cost so far? Say £10m if all the prototypes are built.
A bespoke bus for London was decided to be uneconomic in the 1970s. Could someone please explain why, in a time of deep spending cuts, it is any less uneconomic now?
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I think the problem today is that people have been trained to think only money matters. Some things are worth paying for because they are inspiring, or life-enhancing, as well as useful. Because this bus has style it will attract visitors and spending to London, as well as being simply a pleasure to see and travel upon. Regarding conductors: Speaking as a long-time Londoner, I'd say they are solely missed. What price the safe and friendly atmosphere a conductor creates on a bus ride? Is a warm heart, a smile, uneconomic? If so, then the sums haven't been done right.
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A name for the Boris Bus.... How about this:-
BlunderBus.
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A work of art!
As for the 'hop on hop off' platform... a great revisited addition! I miss that system so much. It was always a great game as a kid to judge the speed and the backward 'step off'!
Hmm! What about accidents involving the idiots of this world? Well sue them for being stupid!
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As regards the name, The Londoner has been used before. The DMS bus in the early seventies was titled so and was a failure for London.......but not for the provinces.
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This is a beautiful bus, and it has been worth waiting for.
The original Routemaster, was designed for the streets of London, and outlived many of the 'standard' buses forced upon London in the 70's and beyond. The DMS Londoner being a good example.
The unique conditions of our capital city require a bus that is eco-friendly, light on the road, and can quickly swallow up queues.
I propose we call this new vehicle the 'Route Liner' following the lineage of Routemaster (RM family), and Routetourer (RT family).
I fully expect that the project will prove to be very cost effective, and if TfL can get 25 or more years service from it, the decision by Boris will be seen as proven.
As to the H&S concerns, it is time indeed, that people take responsibility for their own actions, if one leaves a open platform carelessly, then it is their fault and their fault alone. Open platforms have been used in London, and Paris for over 100 years, and the advantage of being able to step off bus held in traffic when less than 250m from your destination could reduce a few heart attacks around meeting deadlines etc.
Well done Boris!
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So you are on a bike or in a car/van/lorry following the bus when some idiot jumps off the platform as the bus. This is not a simple 'blame the idiot' problem it is the third party damage, injury or even death that could occur. Even if only the idiot is harmed, what would be the long term impact on the third party.
I grew up with RT and RM buses and did platform-hop. I know that it is frustrating when the bus is stuck in traffic or at traffic lights and you can't get on and off, but the amount of traffic on the roads has grown significantly and drivers appear to be in a rush to get anywhere. They don't always look out for cyclists, what about passengers crossing the road to join a bus in the right turn lane or jumping off a bus in a hurry and crossing in front of miving traffic - just bonkers in today's environment.
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Chris raises some interesting points, in dangerous conditions (for example, being driven in an lane away from the pavement), the door should remain locked.
Where the RouteLiner is pavement side, and travelling below an agreed speed, the door should be open.
Undertaking by unregulated cyclists is a risk, but this can be mitigated against via the Police handing out a greater amount of 'on the spot' fines for careless driving.... £80 a time will soon teach them to respect the road traffic laws. Front and rear cameras on the bus providing the evidence.
For those who are worried - easy solution: just wait until the bus has stopped at a designated halt.
For the busy central portions of the route, a conductor can be on board to oversee the doors and general safety. To offset the cost of this resource, he or she could be sponsored by various companies to promote their products (money off coupons etc.).
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It's a very nice object but... do we need this?
We have strikes on the Tube because LU is cutting the staff, in 2011 the fares will rise: I don't think it's the right moment to waste money on an expensive toy (basically I need a bus to go to work, I don't care very much about its appearance, especially early in the morning ;-).
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Complete waste of money! In this age of austerity when councils are saying they won't have the money to fix streetlights and pot holes, how can anyone justify buying a bus that will cost far more than the perfectly good existing double deckers we have already. At least the much hated bendy busses can be sold to other bus companies both in the UK and other right hand drive countries such as Australia or South Africa where they don't have such an issue with bendy busses!
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PsychicLord mentions some of the ideas for mitigating against problems - doesn't a door do that - only opens when bus stops. You could not automate it any other way and it would not make sense for a driver or conductor to manually manage it when their attentions should be elsewhere.
You could be kerb side and slow one second and then pulling out into lane 2 to overtake the next!
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Do the new buses have air conditioning? I do hope so as current London buses are awful in the summer months. All of Glasgow's buses are air conditioned so there is no excuse if these brand new buses do not have air con!
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Just thought I'd add my tuppenth. The idea is the platform at the back will be open when there is a uniformed person on board. It might be a PCSO or a Police officer but not a conductor. The doors will be closed on the platform when there's no-one in authority there. The obvious question being how often will someone be there to make sure the doors are open especially with cuts being played out? And the plan is for this bus to be mainly used in Central London - I don't think you'll see it in the suburbs unless it's a massive success. The environmental benefit claims are not to be sniffed at, but as yet we have only seen a mock-up so we wait to see ..
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Also just got this from tfl: "The bus will have a capacity of 87. 22 seats on the lower deck (including 4 priority seats and 4-6 preferential seats for passengers with restricted mobility) and one wheelchair bay. There will be 40 seats on the upper deck and space for 25 standees on the lower deck. Current double deck buses have a comparable capacity."
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And another thing... there will be no air conditioning.
Fine when the open platform is open, but...
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The glass at the back-don't think the ladies will appreciate it, especially in the summer.
Are we now to have the clippie back? Or will it just be an oyster card reader?
God help TFL or the Mayor if someone falls off the back H&S will have a field day
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No clippies. Coppers.
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In San Francisco, USA ( the most litigious country in the world ) the cable cars run up & down the middle of the street. They are not just used by tourists but also by locals commuting. When I was there you would see them standing on the side running boards hanging on to anything they could. I wonder what happens there if somebody falls off?
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There seems to be a bit of confusion here but legally you can only get on or off a bus when it is stationary at a bus stop. If you choose to get on or off anywhere else or while the bus is moving then the bus operator, TfL, Boris or whoever would not be liable for injury incurred.
The real problem here is that the bus companies (Arriva, First, Stagecoach, etc) are not keen because there is no interest in these buses outside London so Boris is going to have to offer very attractive incentive in order to persuade them to buy these. They certainly aren’t going to pay for the extra staff so if a Police Officer or PCSO isn’t available the open platform will remain close making the whole design of these buses redundant.
They should be called Titanics, partly due to their size but also because Boris carries on with this despite the obvious “Icebergs” threatening to sink his little ego trip.
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21. At 5:41pm on 12 Nov 2010, rayroomster wrote:
In San Francisco, USA ( the most litigious country in the world ) the cable cars run up & down the middle of the street. They are not just used by tourists but also by locals commuting. When I was there you would see them standing on the side running boards hanging on to anything they could. I wonder what happens there if somebody falls off?
Yes and do you think that they would be allowed if someone invented them today? I am certainly no expert, but I would guess there is a difference between certifying a new clean sheet design and one which is already in existence. Imagine you are the certifying officer putting your signature to say that these vehicles are as safe as they could reasonably be made to be. Would you?
I must admit I didn't realise that it was intended for Police or PCSOs to be the "conductor". This would certainly mean that the rear doors would be closed for 99.8% of the time.
As to the various comments about doors opening only when safe to do so, ie when the vehicle is only stationary at the kerbside, we already have arrangements for this. They are called "bus stops" and are served by conventional buses.
11. At 11:17am on 12 Nov 2010, PsychicLord wrote:
Chris raises some interesting points, in dangerous conditions (for example, being driven in an lane away from the pavement), the door should remain locked.
Where the RouteLiner is pavement side, and travelling below an agreed speed, the door should be open.
Excellent fun! The door will open and close of its own accord as the bus speeds up and slows down, potentially knocking passengers standing nearby into the road. Er, maybe not
17. At 4:02pm on 12 Nov 2010, tomedwards wrote:
Also just got this from tfl: "The bus will have a capacity of 87. 22 seats on the lower deck (including 4 priority seats and 4-6 preferential seats for passengers with restricted mobility) and one wheelchair bay. There will be 40 seats on the upper deck and space for 25 standees on the lower deck. Current double deck buses have a comparable capacity."
For 20% of the cost
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I have had the privilege of driving a bus around London and I wondered if the new bus really is a bus for London or is it simply a bus for the IT designer?
With London's narrow streets being even more squeezed with the addition of cycle lanes the new bus should not be wider than the original routemaster, which is considerably narrower than the standard shoe-box bus. What is the size of this bus?
The latest buses have a series of marker lights along their length, a London bus needs these marker lights upgraded to cycle lights, illuminating the road down both sides of the bus giving the driver maximum visability of an overtaking cycle, (powered or pedal)
Cycles weave around the back and the front of buses, a passenger stepping off the platform into a car is one thing, stepping off into a cyclist doubles the potential injury. I would appreciate your thoughts from this perspective.
I hope this London bus is coming with continuous, car free bus lanes. That means no parking or delivery vans during bus times. Why because with an open platform the bus must never leave lane one, not even to overtake, not even to overtake another bus. A London bus can not have passengers chasing it down the middle of the Cities hectic roads.
Ha! If these lanes were possible maybe the bendy bus would be less of a hazzard.
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Some of these negative comments are mean spirited. Can't others see that this bus is a real beauty? Beautiful things go down in history. As for safety concerns, well we managed with the original routemasters for 30 years and most people avoided accidents by using common sense.
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on the outside it looks nice, but i dont like the way that half is black the other half red, looks strange. on the inside v nice.
overall though, complete waste of taxpayers money. at the same time as closing all our A&Es like theres no tomorrow, theyre paying vast sums of money on a bus to replace perfectly good working buses. so many better things they could use the money for with all the cuts theyre doing.
that said, i must confess i would love to see these on the streets of london in a few years
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If you look closer, you may notice that the rear entrance/exit has doors there just open. Look at the rear edge and you will see the rubber seals
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I have been trying to use London buses in my manual wheelchair for about fifteen years. When I first heard about a New Bus for London (NBL), I was quite excited. I thought, 'Here is a chance to design a bus for all Londoners, including the disabled. Then TfL will no longer be able to excuse the poor facilities for wheelchair users and people with other disabilities on the grounds that many buses still in use were built before the Disability Discrimination Act of 2003 (DDA)'.
Last Monday I attended a presentation of the NBL arranged especially for a group of stakeholders with a variety of disabilities. It may be symptomatic of TfL's lack of appreciation of the needs of the disabled to note that the presentation was held at 10am at the London Transport Museum in Acton, and the nearest underground station is Acton Town, which does not have wheelchair access. That meant that to get there from my home in Ilford, I had to leave home at 6.30am, travel by train into Liverpool Street, and then take three buses, in order to make sure of being there on time. That may explain why I was the only wheelchair user who managed to get there. Perhaps a little consideration on the part of TfL the presentation could have started later. As it was, we were at least offered refreshments - well, I suppose that's what the beaker of water was all about. I assume Boris Johnson and the press corps were offered no more in view of the cuts and the £10 million that the bus is going to cost by the time five protypes have been built.
Before we saw the bus we were assured that TfL were very anxious to hear our ideas and take note of them. However, it was not at all encouraging to find when we viewed the bus, that from a fairly lengthy list of design suggestions submitted to TfL in February on behalf of disabled stakeholders by London Travelwatch, the independent watchdog for bus users, only two had been incorporated. So much for listening to stakeholders' views.
During the presentation, a great deal was made of the "whoosh" factor. In other words, the exterior design was obviously what most people seemed to be concerned with. I may be a boring old man, but I thought the main function of a London bus is to transport people, (together with a reasonable amount of shopping or hand luggage or a wheelchair or a baby buggy), as efficiently as possible from one part of London to another. If I want to experience 21st century three-dimensional art, I am quite satisfied to look at sculpture in one of London's art galleries; I don't have to travel in it, neither do I wish to have to pay for it.
So, what were my impressions of the design of the bus? To summarise, I was extremely disappointed. Bearing in mind that a lot of the design points that will affect me as a wheelchair user were not finalised in this 'full scale model,' the only thing that I was able to see that is not negotiable was the wheelchair space.
At this point I must say that I was saddened to see Steve Phillip's original comment that, "(TfL) have worked in space for disabled passengers." A little bit grudging ... are we still to be treated as an afterthought, even 15 years after the first Disability Discrimination Act?
So; the bus. The wheelchair space is totally inadequate. I understood that as a result of a meeting I had over a year ago with the then Chief Engineer at TfL, on a particular bus where, when I sit in my wheelchair as far back as the backrest will allow, my shoes are actually under the lip of the two facing seats; the length of the space in TfL's specification had been increased to a (still inadequate) 1600mm. The length of the new space is 1500mm. I have a standard manual NHS wheelchair and normal upper body strength, yet accessing the space on the NBL entails tight manoeuvring, irritating on a fairly empty bus and very difficult and time consuming when there are standing passengers. The restraining to the side was not fixed in position, but the space is so small that unless the pole is finally positioned too far back to be any use in restraining a wheeler tipping to the side on a sharp bend; it impedes access. Furthermore the restraining bar in front juts out unnecessarily far, hindering access even more.
And of course, in real life, the wheelchair space is often full of one or more baby buggies. Here was a missed opportunity to provide enough room for a wheelchair and at least a baby buggy. As it stands, if the NBL is ever produced in any number, I can look forward (!) to another twenty-five years of conflict with the buggy owners who refuse to fold down their buggy, despite what the notice may (ambiguously) say about wheelchair users having priority. On that point, I have told TfL many times that by having a sticker showing a pictogram of a mother and baby buggy, there is a natural tendency for buggy owners to think that the space is for them. The legend may explain in a mealy-mouthed sort of way that wheelchair users have priority, but (a) a growing number of young parents do not read English sufficiently well to understand it, and (b) many people who understand English well do not read subtly worded instructions. The pictogram 'says' baby buggies, and that's it. Contrast that with the equivalent sticker on Docklands Light Railway trains, where there is in any cases masses of equivalent space. The pictogram shows just a wheelchair user, with the simple legend, "Please give up this space to a wheelchair user."
Another opportunity has been missed to place the wheeler's buzzer far enough away from other bus users so that they do not press it by mistake. As it is, the only position indicated is on the stanchion by the gangway; where standing passengers can press it without realising, or press it without realising that it is a different colour (blue) to the normal buzzers (red). This is not nit-picking. If I do not remember to warn the standing passenger, he inadvertently presses the buzzer, and the driver puts the ramp out thinking it was me. Worse, that buzzer can be pressed so often that the driver ignores it when a wheeler wants to get off, and he is taken on to the next stop.
The headboard against which I position my wheelchair to avoid injury if the bus brakes suddenly, is unnecessarily thick, so that I cannot utilise even the small amount of space provided.
I cannot comment on the ramp, even though its efficient design is crucial to getting on the bus at all; because there is not one on the full-scale model on show. However, I was able to get some idea of TfL'a apparent lack of appreciation of the importance of the design.
The bus is presented on the flat floor of the museum. The mock-up 'pavement' is a perfectly flat board, probably at the 'standard' TfL height of 125mm. The mock-up ramp is one full length board, leading absolutely seamlessly to the floor of the bus.
This is totally unrealistic. In practice, buses run on a road which is cambered towards the gutter, and uneven pavements slope towards the gutter, at varying angles. Furthermore, the pavement height can vary between almost nothing at all to the increasingly popular Kassel kerb at 180mm, further amplified by a deep gutter. Wheelers will already know from experience that the combination of a low ramp and a high kerb can mean that the ramp comes out, hits the face of the kerb, and retracts. Or conversely, is so steep that a wheeler needs help. Then, or course, since the driver "is not allowed to leave his binnacle ... and certainly not allowed to HELP a passenger," the wheeler has to rely on the goodwill of another passenger. Not what I call independent access.
Many types of buses currently in service also have a ridge between the top of the ramp and the floor of the bus, which can cause the wheeler to need outside help.
I asked TfL if the actual ramp was intended to be in one or two stages, but that hadn't been decided. Excuse me, TfL, but that is a very important decision. If it is in two stages, and it is not perfectly maintained, then the second leaf tends to get shorter and shorter, and when it finally doesn't extend at all, the single leaf makes for an impossibly steep angle. If it is a single leaf, as on the bendybus, and the combination of the road surface and pavement height is not just so, then the ramp extends, gets me on, and then cannot drag itself back into its housing. This means that all the passengers have to get off the bus, because whereas if a ramp doesn't extend that is bad news for the wheeler; if it doesn't retract it is tough luck for everyone, because a bus cannot move with a ramp stuck out at ankle height.
Today's ramps are cleverly placed in the middle of the bus, where it sometimes jams if the bus approaches the stop at an angle, because of the natural flexing of the bus. They are also underneath, where they are vulnerable to grit and ice. Compare this with the early bookleaf ramps. If they didn't respond mechanically, they could be simply be lifted out and back in; and being hinged, they adjusted to any height of kerb.
I realise I have already written a great deal more than is likely to be printed. Which is a pity, because I would have liked to give my reasons for saying why I think that what is needed is not £10 million of new bus, but a great deal less money put into employing and training maintenance engineers to service the ones we already have; and crucially, to employ more drivers and pay them more and train them a great deal more intensely. And dare I whisper it, BRING BACK CONDUCTORS, and allow them to HELP PASSENGERS WHO NEED IT.
What I would just like to mention, is that out of the six bus journeys I had to make on Monday to view this new design, only one was trouble free.
Oh, and since you asked for suggestions for a name; why not have a change from London Bus Iconic red.
Paint them white, and call them "BoJo's Elephant."
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