Borisbus inching forward?
 

What with all the Tube strike discussions, I didn't see any discussion
of this press release from a week ago:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/11940.aspx

Borisbus inching forward?
 

Recliner wrote:
What with all the Tube strike discussions, I didn't see any discussion
of this press release from a week ago:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/11940.aspx



I read it at the time, but haven't bothered to cover it yet for some
reason, sheer laziness mainly. Did anyone else notice that the 507 and
521 haven't lost the bendy buses yet? Contract was up at the end of
May, but there's been a delay for some reason.

Anyway, Borisbuses. They're rather coy in not saying that probably
three of the applicants are *foreign*, assuming the three main UK
suppliers are involved, although there could be some wildcards in there.

Also that there's now consideration given to covering up the rear
platform at night. Where I come from that's called a 'door', Boris (the
real reason is probably to save staff costs at times when the bus is
lightly loaded - someone's probably drawn up a cost estimate for running
the bus with two crew on 24 hour routes, and it has rather too many
noughts at the end). So, a collapsible door - if memory serves doors
are amongst the usual troublesome components on new transport vehicles
these days, and I'm not sure making them collapsible will necessarily help.

Finally, there's no suggestion of the bus having to be a hybrid or
electrically powered vehicle, opening the way to a pure diesel or gas
vehicle, provided it's less polluting than some notional 'conventional
bus', of what Euro emissions standard isn't stated.

Tom

Borisbus inching forward?
 

On 11 June, 21:26, Tom Barry wrote:
Recliner wrote:
What with all the Tube strike discussions, I didn't see any discussion
of this press release from a week ago:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/11940.aspx

I read it at the time, but haven't bothered to cover it yet for some
reason, sheer laziness mainly. *Did anyone else notice that the 507 and
521 haven't lost the bendy buses yet? *Contract was up at the end of
May, but there's been a delay for some reason.

Anyway, Borisbuses. *They're rather coy in not saying that probably
three of the applicants are *foreign*, assuming the three main UK
suppliers are involved, although there could be some wildcards in there.

Also that there's now consideration given to covering up the rear
platform at night. *Where I come from that's called a 'door', Boris (the
real reason is probably to save staff costs at times when the bus is
lightly loaded - someone's probably drawn up a cost estimate for running
the bus with two crew on 24 hour routes, and it has rather too many
noughts at the end). *So, a collapsible door - if memory serves doors
are amongst the usual troublesome components on new transport vehicles
these days, and I'm not sure making them collapsible will necessarily help.

Finally, there's no suggestion of the bus having to be a hybrid or
electrically powered vehicle, opening the way to a pure diesel or gas
vehicle, provided it's less polluting than some notional 'conventional
bus', of what Euro emissions standard isn't stated.

Tom

How will they make the upper deck DDA-compliant?

Borisbus inching forward?
 

"Darth Sunil" wrote in message

On 11 June, 21:26, Tom Barry wrote:
Recliner wrote:
What with all the Tube strike discussions, I didn't see any
discussion of this press release from a week ago:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/11940.aspx

I read it at the time, but haven't bothered to cover it yet for some
reason, sheer laziness mainly. Did anyone else notice that the 507
and 521 haven't lost the bendy buses yet? Contract was up at the end
of
May, but there's been a delay for some reason.

Anyway, Borisbuses. They're rather coy in not saying that probably
three of the applicants are *foreign*, assuming the three main UK
suppliers are involved, although there could be some wildcards in
there.

Also that there's now consideration given to covering up the rear
platform at night. Where I come from that's called a 'door', Boris
(the real reason is probably to save staff costs at times when the
bus is lightly loaded - someone's probably drawn up a cost estimate
for running the bus with two crew on 24 hour routes, and it has
rather too many noughts at the end). So, a collapsible door - if
memory serves doors
are amongst the usual troublesome components on new transport
vehicles these days, and I'm not sure making them collapsible will
necessarily help.

Finally, there's no suggestion of the bus having to be a hybrid or
electrically powered vehicle, opening the way to a pure diesel or gas
vehicle, provided it's less polluting than some notional
'conventional bus', of what Euro emissions standard isn't stated.

Tom

How will they make the upper deck DDA-compliant?

Why would they need to?

Borisbus inching forward?
 

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:26:42 +0100, Tom Barry wrote:

Also that there's now consideration given to covering up the rear
platform at night.

This seems a bit silly. There are far fewer buses running at night
than during the day, so if they don't want open platforms at night,
why not just put the Borismasters away at night and only use other
buses? An over-engineered solution to a simple problem.

Borisbus inching forward?
 

Also that there's now consideration given to covering up the rear
platform at night.

This seems a bit silly. There are far fewer buses running at night
than during the day, so if they don't want open platforms at night,
why not just put the Borismasters away at night and only use other
buses? An over-engineered solution to a simple problem.

Looking at the pics of *proposed* (yes, I have noted that word) designs
there would be no opportunity for the driver to sell/check tickets
anyway as the door seems half way along the bus. Unless this is just the
plan for the routes with ticket machines at stops and presumably they
think it unsafe to have open platforms with no conductor.

Borisbus inching forward?
 

Commuter wrote on 14 June 2009 13:16:10 ...
Also that there's now consideration given to covering up the rear
platform at night.

This seems a bit silly. There are far fewer buses running at night
than during the day, so if they don't want open platforms at night,
why not just put the Borismasters away at night and only use other
buses? An over-engineered solution to a simple problem.

Looking at the pics of *proposed* (yes, I have noted that word) designs
there would be no opportunity for the driver to sell/check tickets
anyway as the door seems half way along the bus. Unless this is just the
plan for the routes with ticket machines at stops and presumably they
think it unsafe to have open platforms with no conductor.

I don't think the pictured designs are in any sense "proposed". They
were just the two designs that jointly won the competition. I note that
they have slavishly copied the axle positions from the Routemaster
design. With the space needed for wheelchairs/buggies and the rear
platform, the vehicle would obviously be at least as long as current
double-deckers. Hence, with the front wheels right at the front like
the Routemaster, the wheelbase would be too long. It would be less
manoeuvrable than a bendy-bus!

Are the specs that have been issued to the short-listed manufacturers
available online anywhere?
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

Borisbus inching forward?
 

I see that David Brown, MD of Surface Transport at TfL, is all
enthusiastic about the new 2-person-operated bus: "now we hand the baton
to the bus manufacturers to turn those fantastic ideas into a brand new
bus for the Capital's fleet."

That wasn't his view in December 2007, when he wrote a letter to The
Times as follows:

"Reintroducing open platform buses would require conductors on all
routes, as they would be required to safely manage access. This would
cost £600 million – raising this money would require a huge fare rise
for London’s six million daily bus passengers. The single fare would
have to rise from 90p to at least £1.50 and the weekly pass from £13 to
at least £21.

Open platform buses mean more passenger deaths. The passenger fatality
rate on Routemasters is more than double that of other London buses."

Of course, we had a different Mayor then ...

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

Borisbus inching forward?
 

Richard J. wrote:
I see that David Brown, MD of Surface Transport at TfL, is all
enthusiastic about the new 2-person-operated bus: "now we hand the baton
to the bus manufacturers to turn those fantastic ideas into a brand new
bus for the Capital's fleet."

That wasn't his view in December 2007, when he wrote a letter to The
Times as follows:

"Reintroducing open platform buses would require conductors on all
routes, as they would be required to safely manage access. This would
cost £600 million – raising this money would require a huge fare rise
for London’s six million daily bus passengers. The single fare would
have to rise from 90p to at least £1.50 and the weekly pass from £13 to
at least £21.

Open platform buses mean more passenger deaths. The passenger fatality
rate on Routemasters is more than double that of other London buses."

Of course, we had a different Mayor then ...


They aren't that mutually contradictory - it clearly would cost a
staggering amount of cash to introduce new 2 crew buses on all routes,
which would mean fare rises, which is presumably why Boris and co. are
trying to find a way round it, like not having conductors on them all
the time or not having that many 2 crew buses (500-800 out of 8000+ has
been mentioned, which isn't really bringing back the Routemaster but
still obviously costs a stack of cash at a time when plenty of Tories
think that the large annual bus subsidy could use a haircut or a healthy
dose of privatisation).

On the second point Brown is quite right to say that the baton has been
passed to the bus manufacturers, because there was an OJEU notice back
in about February and presumably six companies have come forward between
then and now. The notice didn't, from memory, give much away other than
to say 'we had this competition, who wants to design a bus using bits
from it?'

Obviously, being a non-partisan employee of a very partisan
organisation, Brown's going to have to trim his comments to fit the mood
of the man at the top or lose his job, but there's sufficient between
the lines to suggest that TfL are playing off both sides somewhat.
What's noteworthy is that the bus companies are firmly not going to be
turning the sketches that were put into the papers into a bus, they're
quite possibly going to be adding sufficient twiddly bits to satisfy TfL
while trying desperately to reuse as much existing technology, economic
conditions hardly being conducive to massive investment in wholly new
programmes. Apart from anything else, 2 out of the 3 UK manufacturers*
already have very recently launched designs they'd presumably wish to
get their money back from rather than build a competitor). I won't even
go down the delicious route of what might happen if a foreign builder
had the best tender and Tory-run TfL had to have their very expensive
bus built in Stuttgart or Poznan during an election campaign where
British jobs are going to feature big.

Brown is also famous for a sterling demolition of the bendy myths in
front of the LA Transport Committee.

Tom

* The third being ADL, who are currently cleaning up in the market with
their existing product - just getting some new ones on our local route,
in fact.

Borisbus inching forward?
 

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:26:42 +0100, Tom Barry
wrote:


Also that there's now consideration given to covering up the rear
platform at night. Where I come from that's called a 'door', Boris (the
real reason is probably to save staff costs at times when the bus is
lightly loaded - someone's probably drawn up a cost estimate for running
the bus with two crew on 24 hour routes, and it has rather too many
noughts at the end).

As someone from outside London who's knowledge of public transport
there is admittedly limited, can you explain why a borisbus would need
to be double crewed?
--
Cheers

Peter