On 17 May, 14:12, Tom Barry wrote:

It's not a Routemaster.

Nor should it be. Requirements have changed in over half a century,
and I would hope that we would have made improvements in that time.
The RM was a very good 1950s bus, and since then we've had a whole
series of generally not very good buses from the Fleetline in the '70s
onwards.

What we need is a bus which is quick to load and unload, reliable,
quick, easy and cheap to maintain and which has a long life - things
which the Rm did, without the things that it didn't do as well.

One report that I read said that the new one would have an open
platform; surely that's not the case, is it? I wouldn't have thought
that would stand any chance of passing modern regulations.