Paul Corfield wrote:


I did like the fact that KPMG offered up the enhanced air cooling
systems for sacrifice - now which politician would be crazy enough to
kill off that feature given the annual furore about buses being too hot
and cooking people alive? Nice bit of tactical report writing there ;-)


The whole thing does make one (and Nozza, too, no doubt) suspect that
the bus companies and TfL both know the existing system works well for
both of them and are careful to ensure that there's a smoking gun
available if the new masters try anything too radical.

For my money, I'd expect buses to stay in service longer (particularly
with the debendifications taking some ridiculous proportion of the new
buses in 2011), fares to rise above inflation (justified by comparison
with the rest of the UK, so hello to the £1.50 bus fare), routes to be
cut back in some areas and frequency enhancements put on hold with the
hope that the increasing fares, bike hire scheme etc. will take the
overspill. One thing that *might* help in some areas is when the first
Tube lines get a big boost in capacity, since the justification for the
massive increase in bus capacity was that the Tube couldn't cope without
new signalling.

Tom