Listen carefully. The sound you can hear is the Whiplash Lawyers Association rubbing their hands together as they drool over TfL keeping them in the manner to which they have become so accustomed.
In April 2010, Michael Cockerill, in his excellent programme for BBC on the Great Offices of State, found out that in the Treasury a repetition of mistakes in policy occurred with alarming regularity as soon as the last senior person in the department who had been scorched by the previous fiasco had retired. This is a process well known to management consultants who describe it as “Change the names – Erase the tapes”
Sadly it may be happening again in the world of transport. In the early 1970’s, after leaving university, this author worked, briefly, in a very junior capacity for one of the then newly formed Passenger Transport Executives. Trying to weld together twelve local authority and private operators into one coherent bus company was at the time truly “Alice in Wonderland” stuff. Labour relations lingered on with operating precedents established in the days of tramcars and trolleybuses. Arcane inter union conflicts between the Tongue and Grove (aka the Transport and General Workers) and NALGO (the National Association of Local Government Officers) were fought out for years over who did what and when. Razor sharp elbows flashed in the sunlight as the twelve general managers, twelve chief engineers, twelve commercial managers (and so on) fought to retain their prior autonomy and establish new territories in the new order. Mayhem, arguably, would be the term of choice to describe the times.
Amazingly, about the only thing that there seemed to be general agreement about amongst all parties was that rear entrance buses with open platforms had to go.
Firstly, they were expensive – as they required a conductor. This increased the quantum of management complexity in scheduling the workforce as well as costing a lot more than OMO (One Man Operation) – a cost that grew throughout the entire vehicle life cycle.
Secondly, the open platforms were dangerous. Passengers were always falling down the stairs – although not as often as the conductors (why? – because conductors would be going up and down stairs over forty hours a week whilst customers usually only went up and down twice a day).
Although strictly prohibited from doing so, passengers would also board and disembark at any point that suited them – often whilst the bus was moving.
Fortunately our legal department was small – most legal functions remaining vestigially under the control of the various Town Clerk’s departments who would send out standard letters with the basic message – “ if you disobey the clearly displayed terms and conditions of travel about getting on and off the bus (moving or not) don’t come crying to us”. Is it conceivable, however, in these days of day-time television adverts inciting people to sue others for compensation (of which of course you will get 100%) that TfL will be able to take such an old-fashioned response with its emphasis on individual responsibility and liability?
Similarly, is it conceivable – given today’s traffic conditions – that motorists will not find themselves having to break or swerve sharply to avoid giving ex-bus passengers involuntary lifts on the bonnets of their cars? Will truck drivers have to worry about the risk of latter day “leap for freedom” daredevils falling victim to their front tyres?
Finally, is it conceivable that – given the ageing population – a drastically reduced seating capacity downstairs is going to go down well with the elderly and infirm, armed as they all are with their Freedom or English National Concession bus passes? As for Mums with their Cairngorm-capable mountain bike tyred baby buggies – I regret dear reader; I must draw a veil to save your delicate sensibilities.
The new Routemaster was a dream of halcyon days that never really were. It was an overdose of that fantasy dust, “nostalgia”, snorted through an election manifesto. Once Boris Johnson had been voted in we were doomed to go through this fantasy quadrille.
An Opportunity Missed?
It is so sad – we could have had something that really was a new Routemaster.
The key feature of the old Routemaster was not; repeat not, the door at the back. It was the undoubted systems engineering strengths of the original design – modular parts and effective asset life cycle management leading to cost effective maintenance and robust operation. We could have been first in a world with the next generation of emission free electric buses. We could have had designs and patents capable of spreading the new Routemaster’s development overheads over global scale production runs, with per unit divisors in thousands not hundreds. We could have created a “here and now” demand for new technologies from the London Universities world-class research bases. We could have had long easy access public service vehicles on our street with known kinetic envelopes – like London’s rivals such as Paris, Zurich or Frankfurt. They were called IIRC trams.
(By the way, City Hall may care to ring up Imperial College and ask them to browse their archives for their studies on the dangers of rear entrance buses. They did work on this in those pre-internet days – so unfortunately we have no link. Professor Peter White at University of Westminster may also be worth contacting too for an expert view of the period. He arguably knows more about the bus grant scheme put together by the Government to get rid of rear entrance buses than anybody else in the capital).
Like Hans Christian Anderson’s little boy shocked by his King’s nudity, who will tell the Mayor that he is similarly exposed over his bus? In these straitened times, somebody really has to subject this programme to a comprehensive spending review.
If only there was an Assembly Committee prepared to ask tough if not downright pithy questions?
I see that the latest routes that have gone over to the ‘Borismaster’ are the 12 and 15, although the heritage routemaster is still running, but for how long. Boris won’t be happy until all double decker routes have been taken over by these lumbering beasts.
@ Lady Bracknell – the Heritage 15 is out for retender at the moment so we will learn soon enough if TfL award a contract for a further term and how long that term is. They can, of course, terminate or amend contracts if they choose to at any point so a 5 year contract term is no guarantee of 5 years service.
It is worth stating now that we are only just over half way through the NB4L delivery programme with 800 on order and we’re at about 440 deliveries. The 73 and 149 are the next routes in line for conversion and the 189 is rumoured to be due for conversion at some point. At some point we will see the “Mark 2” NB4L vehicles turn up with the improvements that were stated in the TfL Board Paper when the extra 200 were ordered. As all the buses have to be in service by April 2016 there has to be a pretty aggressive conversion programme between now and then to meet the programme target date and so the Mayor can claim completion before purdah for the 2016 Mayoral Election.
@ww any idea what the improvements on the Mark2 are?
@ Rational Plan – the Board paper mentioning heating, ventilation and engine insulation changes. I have heard there may be changes to the rear door design / operation and the Board paper hints in this direction. There are other “rumours” whizzing around about other possible changes but they’re not substantiated in any way so they can carry on whizzing around the “gossipsphere”.
Just to update people on all things “NB4L”. We are about to resume a further series of route conversions having had the 159 convert to NB4L before Christmas. Routes 3 and 68 are next in line with the 91 due in a few months plus the 211. This means Abellio London will have very quickly acquired three NB4L routes having not run any for a couple of years. Route 91’s conversion is dependent on highway changes at Crouch End Broadway to allow the longer NB4Ls to turn at the roundabout there.
A single shorter length NB4L has been produced – rumoured for use on route 91 but we shall see what happens. This bus has been numbered ST2001 as anyone answering the LR Christmas Quiz would know. There are also suggestions that Wrightbus are putting the NB4L body design on top of Volvo B5 hybrid chassis. This is a similar concept to the recently developed Alexander Dennis E400 City which has various “styling cues” from the NB4L. A batch of these buses is on route 78 (Shoreditch – Nunhead).
No sign yet of any NB4Ls appearing out of the factory with the promised opening windowns. Also no sign of an existing vehicle having been converted either. The very first NB4L, LT1, has returned to service having been away for a couple of years on a “sales mission”. Despite no orders having been received it seems LT665 (a new delivery) is off to Singapore where Go Ahead have one of the new area bus contracts. Given the heat and humidity in Singapore I simply cannot see a non air conditioned bus being remotely acceptable to politicians and passengers.
More surprising news, given that TfL denied there were any plans to order more NB4Ls when they appeared in front of the Assembly’s Budget and Performance Cttee last September, is the emergence of a paper requesting authority to buy 30 more NB4Ls. Even more shocking is that the Finance and Policy Cttee paper requesting 30 more buses has transmogrified into a Board Paper asking for 195 more buses. If approved this would take the fleet up to the magic 1,000 vehicles when TfL can license the design to manufacturers other than Wrightbus. It is noteworthy that Questions to the Mayor on this topic have gone unanswered since mid December 2015.
On my sole trip to Singapore, many years ago, buses weren’t just air-conditioned – they were like fridges. I had to get off to warm up!
No definite news on whether the ‘New Bus’ will go any further into South East London than Deptford DLR, which is where the 453 terminates. I have spotted what I presume to be test runs in Lewisham and Blackheath Village, but would be surprised if any routes are converted.
@ Lady Bracknell – Wrightbus have a repair centre in Orpington so you may be seeing test / delivery runs of buses having been repaired rather than trying out a specific route. The known conversions are routes 3 and 68 (happening now), 189 (a recent tender award), 91 (due April when they find a way to make a roundabout the right size for a NB4L to turn 180 degrees at it) and possibly the 211. There are rumbling rumours about the 139 and 59 but no confirmation. Beyond that we do not know other than 195 more of the wretched things have been ordered. There have been recent tender awards for some SE London routes this week and that means new hybrids for the 21, 63 and 363. These are not identified as NB4Ls in the award notice. The 47 through Lewisham is receiving brand new hybrids right now so that’s ruled out too.
There is a backlog of pending tender awards but only a small number of routes on the list could be considered potential NB4L candidates and even then some have route restrictions that make the use of 11.3m long buses impossible. TfL may, of course, order shorter versions within the batch of the 195 extras to get round those constraints. We shall see what transpires.
Thanks Walthamstow Writer. A repair depot at Orpington now makes sense of the sightings south of SE8.
Route 47 is gradually changing over to the Enviro 400H and seems to be more spacious than its replacement, especially at the rear – however, this probably means fewer seats. As I have often said, I am no fan of the lumbering NB4L, especially as operators have kiboshed Boris Johnson’s promise of open platform running, so if no more of them appeared on the streets of London that would suit me fine. I do really like the look of the Enviro 400H City being operated on route 78 and this seems more like what a modern bus should be. I hope to see this model on more routes.
@ Lady Bracknell – just to be clear the operators do what TfL tell them to do under their contracts. Therefore none of them have kyboshed anything. It is absolutely clear in TfL papers released to the London Assembly about the NB4L business case that TfL never intended to put crews on more than 250 buses. That is roughly what runs now. The policy was always that the NB4L fleet would be largely OPO. I leave it to the reader to decide who hasn’t been entirely truthful about the bus.
The 47 is getting Volvo B5L hybrids but with ADL MMC bodywork. The 26 is also getting a batch of Enviro 400 Citys when CT Plus take over the route later this year.
I assume that if TfL get to the magic number of 1000 NB4Ls they hope to be able to cut unit costs by a bit of competition. However, would the overall savings be greater than the extra expense of buying 135 more NB4Ls from Wrightbus, as opposed to getting operators to supply 135 alternative modern hybrids?
Pardon my memory, but is this reference to “competition” something to do with the legal terms of the NB4L design? And if so, is the price reduction (from manufacturers rushing to produce the bus) expected to outweigh the bus’s perceived shortcomings?
@ Fandroid / Malcolm – the cost of the 195 extra buses is apparently in the region of £310k per vehicle. This is lower than the cost of the previous two batches. I understand that once the “magic” 1,000 orders value is reached that TfL gains the right to licence the design from Wrights to other manufacturers. The crucial question is whether anyone would be interested in taking on the task of building someone else’s design and whether they could stand a chance of being price competitive. The other aspect is what TfL decide to require / request via route contracts or if they decide to try for another capital purchase. The next Mayor will also be a crucial factor but we know next to nothing about the candidates’ intentions about buses and bus services.
I think it is impossible to know what savings there might be in such an uncertain situation with too many variables in play.
@WW. Exactly. The level of uncertainty is so great that it might look as if TfL are playing games with taxpayers’ money on the offchance that they might get something back from 100% ownership of the NB4L design.
Other LR articles on NB4L have pointed out how TfL have made the most of a Mayoral obsession by pushing the boundaries of hybrid bus design. I suppose it’s possible that it’s these elements that TfL is thinking of grabbing the rights to, rather than the more superficial ones of body shape plus extra doors and stairs. Even then, it would still look to be a big punt to spend that much in the hope of grabbing more back.
@ Fandroid – Don’t get me started on taxpayers’ money and this sudden order for 195 buses. The money is *unbudgeted* – how on earth do TfL find £60+m at a moment’s notice? This is the same TfL that won’t provide Countdown displays at stops at a mere £8k a stop despite endless requests from politicians for them to be provided. This is the same TfL that has said there was “no money” for route improvements for the last 7 years. Yes those things are on my “shopping list” but it makes me wonder what’s going on when cash can fall out of the sky for one thing but nothing else.
I am very sceptical that any of the underlying technology in a NB4L is within Wrightbus’s gift to licence. It’s all bought in and no supplier is going to licence hybrid drives or motors or anything else to TfL for use by someone else. The only aspects that are likely to covered by the license are the bodywork design, interior design, moquettte design etc. I’m more and more convinced that “someone” is trying to recreate the 1950s or 1960s single type of double deck bus philosophy so loved of the old London Transport but in modern form with the NB4L. I’m not sure what London has done to deserve that fate but then I’m not a fan of the NB4L. I am sure some people are in paroxysms of joy at the prospect of every double decker in zone 1 being a NB4L.
And if so, is the price reduction (from manufacturers rushing to produce the bus) “expected to outweigh the bus’s
perceivedknown shortcomings?”*cough*
but we know next to nothing about the candidates’ intentions about buses and bus services. I am given to understand that the next two issues of the printed magazine may go a long way to remedying that shortfall.
I am sure some people are in paroxysms of joy at the prospect of every double decker in zone 1 being a NB4L. Particularly on a sweaty July day with the temperature at 28 & the rel. humidity at 95% you mean?
@WW. I share your misgivings. It really is not the time for TfL to play fast and loose with the cash. There really has to be an absolute focus on how to provide the transport and cut the emissions all within a constrained budget. A tertiary objective might be to ensure that London’s buses are all of a high design quality.
Re WW,
NBfL IP etc.
I suspect the situation is a bit messier than might be expected hence there might be some options / opportunities / control for TfL especially if they want to modify them without Wright involvement or Wright partners involvement.
The major supplier for hybrid bus systems worldwide is a partnership of BAE systems and Cummins* (and ZF). They supply mechanical hybrid transmission systems which for example Alexander Dennis buy the whole lot as complete integrated package… But not on the Boris Bus.
*Partnership originally for Hybrid Tanks! BAE has plenty of “electric drive” experience with submarines and surface vessels with RR too.
But for NBfL (with more advanced electric transmission hybrid) it looks like Wrights bought in the various component technologies and took the lead on some of the integration themselves (Cummins engine, Siemens electricals and Valence (in bankruptcy for the batteries)), hence TfL might want to get more control if they want to re-engine them or do design changes in due course (petrol engine for NOx emission reduction???)
Bombardier have very recently become public gate crashers to the more advanced hybrid electrical drive party (obviously after years of R&D and testing behind the scenes.)
Their system is very interesting in that it has vastly larger supercapacitor banks than other systems so there is less or no cyclic charging and discharging of the batteries they are aiming for 10 year battery life and can also handle induction charging (they also have electric buses in mind). The electrical systems are mini versions of the Mitrac sytems found on the Electrostar EMUs and their Battery /OHLE trams.
ngh
It’s almost like the period 1814-30 with steam locomotion, or 1895-1910 with “petrol” powered vehicles isn’t it?
With all sorts of permutations & combinations of motive/drive technologies vying for pre-eminence.
Noting the 15-year span of both the previous examples, & the first hybrid buses were in proper road service – when? ( Wiki says 2005/6 ) then I presume we will see the equivalent of “Rocket” by 2020 & the equivalent of Planet/Patentee before 2025 – after which I presume we can forget about road-pollution in towns (!)
A n other example. First practical fixed steam turbine (Parsons) 1884,Turbinia built 1894, Spithead review 1897, large transatlantic turbine liners ( Carmania ) by 1905 ( = 21 years maximum, or 11 years for ships )
@Greg
the first hybrid buses were in proper road service – when? ( Wiki says 2005/6 )
The first in London, and, if I understand the article, anywhere else, were in Feb/March 2006, on route 360
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2006/february/mayor-launches-londons-first-hybrid-buses-to-make-cleaner-greener-bus-fleet
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/1989
But hybrid buses were around before that – 100 years before to be precise, as Tillings started operating petrol-electric buses in 1906.
See also :
http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2014/01/09/the-fraud-that-killed-off-londons-first-electric-buses/
Re timbeau,
Battery only powered is not Hybrid (and neither is electric transmission on its own)
It is also worth noting, in the context of technology changing, that TfL is trialling a number of “all electric” vehicles. No moans about trolleybuses please – been done to death. We have single deckers running in Central London and Croydon and Hounslow plus the recharging double decks on the 69. What has yet to come into service are the Chinese built all electric double deckers on route 98 out of Willesden Garage. In August 2016 all the “Red Arrow” buses at Waterloo garage will be swapped out for new all electric Chinese single decks with Alexander Dennis bodywork. Apparently the switchover is planned for the Bank Holiday weekend with the entire new fleet entering service on the Tuesday morning. That’s going to be worth seeing.
Won’t be the first time the Red Arrows have been changed over a Bank Holiday. The 20 year old Leyland Nationals last ran on May 31st 2002, and the Bendibuses (London’s first) entered service on June 5th (a Wednesday), taking advantage of the extended bank holiday weekend marking the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
WW
plus the recharging double decks on the 69.
Really?
Are they actually in-service yet? I haven’t seen one that I had noticed ….
@Greg
According to LOTS, “Route 69 [passed] from Stagecoach to Tower Transit, Saturday 6th February using 19 Stagecoach Tridents on loan”.
With any transfer there will be a learning curve, even if the drivers (as well as the vehicles!) have been TUPEd. Could this have resulted in the electric experiment being put on the back burner for the time being?
@ Greg – yes they have been in service. I’ve had a ride on one to Stratford. To be fair and not unexpected their appearances have been a bit spasmodic and I understand some / all of the 3 buses have been away for modifications at ADL’s premises in Harlow. They are amazingly quiet inside. I put a photo in the group Flickr pool a few weeks ago.
@ Timbeau – I don’t know if the transfer to Tower Transit of the full route 69 workings has had any impact on the trial of the all electric deckers. None out today from looking at London Vehicle Finder. Anecdotal reports suggest the 69’s operation hasn’t been sparking since the transfer but I haven’t had cause to use it so no direct experience of the new operator on that route.
I have used the new buses on the 47 a couple of times and they are far far better buses than NB4L and I am not just referring to lack of open platform that just wastes space . I am talking about the full size windows at front of upper deck which provide a view some passengers pay thousands of pounds to see but find themselves on buses with Windows more like those ” Uncle Albert” had his navy adventures …
Another major fault with NB4L is the steep staircases which I have slid down a few times or missed steps because you can’t see them .
It’s also worth remembering that the NB4L arose out of a competition to design a new bus for London however just like Mr Ford sold cars as long as you wanted black , BOJOS new bus had to come with an open rear platform leading to a 3rd entrance thus reducing passenger capacity and with promise ALL would have a conductor who in fact turned into a rear platform safety attendant!
The irony is bus technology and emission control is advancing at a pace which means NB4L is already out dated and with full electric double deck buses coming on stream they will be as outdated as slam door trains used on GN electrification were .
WW / timbeau
Thanks for that – I Pass the bus station 2 – 3 times a week & hadn’t noticed anything different, but if there are only 2 or 3 electric buses at present I could easily have missed them
Where’s the photo – so that I can know what to look out for?
Are they modified Alexander/Dennis Enviro 400 models?
I can’t “see” the members, because I can’t enter “yahoo” at all ( Yahoo only allows one user per e-mail address & it’s not me … )
@ Greg – yes they are a modified version of the ADL E40H MMC double decker.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/22891119194/
The timetable shows the workings that have electric duplicate workings on M-F (subject to the vehicles being available).
Seems from the comments under that Flickr photo that the electric buses (recognisable by their “65” registrations) were delivered to Tower Transit, to be operated by them alongside Stagecoach until the transfer of the main contract. That transfer has itself been brought forward, but as TT do not have enough of their own conventional buses available until the transfer of the 26 from them to CTPlus releases some, they are borrowing Stagecoach vehicles for the time being.
I assume they are virtually silent. I also assume that “life was too short” to remove the presumably now unnecessary louvres & vents at the rear, now there isn’t a big diesel engine down in there?
Thanks again – I’ll keep a look-out for them.
Oops – my bad
I had forgotten that they still have a diesel engine, hopefully not used a lot, or at all?
Melvyn,
The irony is bus technology and emission control is advancing at a pace which means NB4L is already out dated and with full electric double deck buses coming on stream
Yes, and the question that we will never know the answer to is how much NB4L spurred on that advancement and how much would have happened anyway at the same pace regardless of the NB4L order. I suspect the order woke a few people up. A bit like Siemens getting the Thameslink order which woke Bombardier out of their complacency. It does raise the question of why persist with buying more NB4Ls though?
However much people criticise NB4L I think the mere fact that TfL made it clear that they weren’t happy with what was available off-the-shelf and made the bus world deadly serious about its intentions for the future regarding emissions mean that at worst this will all be a glorious failure.
From the Flickr comments: what are these ‘virtual electrics’ and how do they work?
Re Richard Thomas,
http://www.alexander-dennis.com/wp-content/files_mf/1422631152VirtualElectricBrochure.pdf
Similar to Boris Buses except with bigger batteries which can also be external charged. (similar to a PHEV in car marketing terms).
@ PoP – I’m sorry but come on! The NB4L was a Mayoral demand and nothing else. Yes a lot of load of old nonsense has been spun by TfL to “justify” the vast sums spent but the bus industry was already working hard to proceed to very low emission hybrids and electric buses. A lot of this has been supported by EU funding and projects in a number of cities. The NB4L was overtaken by better performing and cheaper euro6 vehicles so quite what “push” it or TfL’s “demands” gave to anything is highly debateable. For the vast sums spent and to be spent we could have had far more double deck hybrids in service or due to arrive. The Mayor was completely unable / unwilling to explain why he cancelled the previously announced policy of buying only hybrids was scrapped when he was challenged at the Plenary meeting.
The real answer is “lack of money” to support such spent on less busy outer suburban routes which have been equipped with new diesels instead. That trend is still carrying on. The other major area where London has not pushed the market is hybrid single deck vehicles – there is a palpable lack of such buses in London and some fleets have been sent to the scrapheap and replaced by diesels. Given how many hybrid single decks there are in the USA you have to wonder why the London can’t cope with them. The other oddity is that major commercial operators are buying large fleets of micro hybrid single decks that are also lightweight giving fuel savings but very very few run in London – the 444 route has some but beyond that there are few routes with the requisite technology (some Go Ahead run routes have midibuses with flywheel technology as Go Ahead have partnered with a technology supplier).
If TfL wanted to take credit for the early push towards low floor buses and also the early adoption and trial of hybrid technology then I would not have any disagreement with that. The place of the NB4L in all this is dubious at best especially given its other notable failings which are NOT replicated on standard commercially produced double deck buses.
Walthamstow Writer,
I knew you would disagree but it was based on comments from one of the project managers at Alexander Dennis. Until Wrightbus came along in force I got the impression that Alexander Dennis just presumed that much of the London bus market was already theirs for the taking. All they needed to do was concentrate on doing what they already did. Although they knew they wouldn’t get the contract (for various reasons) NB4L was a bit of a wake up call. Whether it was a mayoral demand or not is irrelevant.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this one.
@ PoP – I am genuinely surprised anyone at ADL would say that and mean it. London’s bus market has never ever been theirs for the taking – especially double deckers. Certain groups have had a long attachment to buying Volvos and Arriva had a special relationship with DAF / VDL. ADL deckers have only been bought by some operators because Volvo and Wrights could not supply in time. It is worth noting that ADL have considered it sensible to offer the new MMC bodywork on Volvo hybrid chassis – so far a sensible decision as several batches have been ordered. Single deckers are different as the Enviro 200 / E20D (Dennis Dart of old) has long been considered a London centric vehicle with vast fleets of them across all operators. I could understand some ADL “arrogance” or “smugness” about their market dominance for London single decker orders.
The fact remains that technology, operator demands and emissions regulations have been pushing the industry towards lighter, more fuel efficient, more capacious and low emission vehicles for the last 10 years. The NB4L fails on several of these aspects and the weight / capacity issue is getting worse not better with the need to retrofit opening windows which will be heavier. As you say we won’t agree on this so I’ll shut me gob now!
PoP
Bit still with non-opening windows.
Which I regard as a disgrace, given the known & much-reported problems in warm/humid weather conditions.
FWIW, I also agree with every point in critique raised by WW, too.
Especially the (IMHO disgraceful) apparent dropping of electric/hybrid single-deckers for use in the outer zones – why this retrograde step, & will someone in TfL/Mayoralty please explain, especially in light of European (etc) drive towards cleaner, more efficient vehicles?
Greg,
Believe me I share your disappointment in things not getting sorted out. Let us not forget the original Routemasters were introduced with underwhelming reviews and they had their share of faults which took years to sort out – but that is no excuse particularly in this day and age.
In many ways I am more disappointed than you or Walthamstow Writer because I want the bus to succeed whereas I get the feeling a lot of people want it to fail and that appears to be partly brought about because it is associated with Boris.
I think it is also unfortunate that people go on about Boris’s involvement. The nitty gritty is the three doors and two staircases together with the intention of reducing emissions below any existing double deck bus on the market at the time. These were all very much TfL aspirations unrelated to the Mayor (who primarily wanted it “iconic” and to have bus conductors).
I still think it was game changer in a positive way even if to see the benefits of this game change you actually have to look at other modern buses.
PoP, Greg, WW.
I have no difficulty with the concept of *a* NBfL, simply with *the* NBfL. The current Mayor pledged to introduce a NBfL as part of the manifesto on which he was elected. No doubt the Boris-bashers would have been equally scathing in their comments if he hadn’t kept to his manifesto. The problem is that what was produced has more draw-backs than positives. It is a matter of regret that someone in authority hasn’t been prepared to publicly say so.
Strictly speaking we should now be talking about the NRM, as licensing details and maker’s plates changed to New Routemaster from LT 517 (i.e. with the revised rear door).
I think the challenge is to learn lessons. Like PoP, I reckon that the three door, twostair layout was the key feature the TfL would have wanted (more doors – shorter dwells). I would contend that the series hybrid was necessary to deliver this layout; a smaller diesel, tucked away. What I suspect is that the industrial design is the achilles heel. It lokks nice at the front lower deck (my opinion) but the rest is a pastiche of the old Routemaster with its worst features exaggerated. The interior looks lkke a 1960s routemaset with the earliest LED glow worm lights. All that curved glass around the stairs adds to weight and does nothing for modesty! And there would have been space for a bigger aircooler if they hadn’t put in that grossly exaggerated rear roof “dome”.
Who’s for a mk 2 version with a proper industrial designer involved who is used to dealing with vehicles?
There are several issues with the NB4L (I simply won’t use it’s other name).
1. The political basis on which it was created. Boris was the front man for a reprehensible campaign and it’s the latter that’s the issue not the front man.
2. The fact it costs far, far too much money compared to other vehicles that perform better.
3. The fact that the proposition put to voters ended up being proven to be a lie – i.e. they’d all be crew operated with hop on, hop off operation. TfL’s own papers show this was never intended beyond 250 buses.
4. The design simply does NOT work. The ventilation, heating, seat comfort, inward opening back door that thumps people, the metal step edges that burn people’s legs during sunny conditions, the claustrophic upper deck, the botched lower deck seat layout and the poorly designed wheelchair bay are all problems. You then move on to all the battery related problems, umpteen crashes involving the buses and seemingly poor reliability given how often they break down and routes run with other vehicle types. If there had been a proper evaluation period over a decent time period and a genuine commitment to amend the design to resolve those issues then I might have been much more sympathetic and we may have ended up with a half decent bus. However the political deadline has left us with a flawed and deeply compromised design with no commitment to put all the errors right.
I was initially impressed with the quiet, smooth ride on one of the 38’s prototype vehicles but a long ride on the 24 not long after they introduced left me feeling ill with a thumping headache. No other form of transport makes me ill – not even cross channel ferries during a repeat of “Great Storm” conditions (yes I did go to Calais and got stuck there because of the weather). I fail to see why I should use a vehicle that makes me ill. I know I am not alone in not enjoying the NB4L’s travelling environment.
5. Despite having a great interest in buses I was never wedded to the “London must have its bespoke bus design” idea. The market can and does provide perfectly decent bus designs and I see nothing wrong with supporting manufacturers who take the risk with their designs. Quite why the taxpayer had to fork out £11m for the deeply flawed design of the NB4L I really do not understand (apart from the poisoned politics).
6. The NB4L carries fewer passengers that modern equivalent designs. That’s ludicrous given the demand pressures on some of the routes the vehicles are deployed on. We need long vehicles with lots of seats and standing space and not necessarily bending in the middle either.
7. The routes on which the NB4L is deployed are lumbered with less effective technology for up to 14 years which doesn’t feel right when they’re running through the upcoming ULEZ. This means the NB4L either perform suboptimally in the ULEZ or are scrapped prematurely or are cascaded to suburban routes where they really are not the right answer at all.
I think London and TfL should concentrate on gently pushing the market place to develop good marketable and affordable buses for London. It should completely give up spending money on bespoke buses with no cascade or resale value. So Mr “130” – no Mark 2 versions please. We just need some boring, plodding work from TfL to sort the traffic out, provide some decent bus priority, get service reliability back and get services expanded and improved to do the job they’re supposed to do instead of being the disaster area they are increasingly becoming. The latest Surface Transport MD’s report makes sobering reading – patronage down, patronage below target, excess wait times worse than last year and worsening period by period.
@WW
“inward opening back door that thumps people, ”
That, at least, has been fixed – but the mod makes it impossible to operate in “open platform” mode.
@WW
“umpteen crashes involving the buses ”
are they involved in significantly more accidents than other buses? Or are they just more likely to make the headlines?
@WW
“I simply won’t use its other name”
Credit where its due (or the converse) Heatherwick’s Heavyweight: why let him off the hook?
Re 130,
Technologically the Mark 2 design is effectively already available see WW’s mention of the ADL E40H MMC above.
Greg et al.
NB4L ventilation easily sorted, small opening windows at the front like the modified original RMs and at the rear a 4″ hole saw and 4x 70-80cm lengths of 4″ PVC waste pipe per bus. The pipes would need to extend 40-50cm horizontally beyond the upper curved rear piece of the bus (but within the overall bus length) in to the low pressure area just behind, correctly positioned they will suck the air out of the top deck very nicely while in motion (In the same way as a F1 car exhaust system effectively sucks the exhaust gases out of the cylinders so engine power isn’t directly wasted pushing the exhaust gases out while in motion). For aesthetics you could fake chrome plate the pipes to give the NB4L the boy racer look 😉
If you want a triple doors, 2 stair and a reasonable capacity you probably want to be looking at a triple axle design.
@ngh
“If you want
a: triple doors,
b: 2 stair and
c: reasonable capacity
you probably want to be looking at a triple axle design.”
Well, look what happened last time TfL tried a triple-axle design. (Mind you, it only scores two out of three of the criteria above)
https://londonparticulars.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bendy-bus.jpg
I am not actually all that far from WW’s position. I was focusing on the concept, not the product, and I agree that open platforms in the 21st century are anachronistic unless attached to 50 year old heritage Routemasters on route 15.
There is no reason why the air conditioning shouldn’t work…..that’s down to an inadequate specification or execution. No one has complained about S stock air conditioning, because it work. So engineers need to get to the bottom of the problems on NB4L Having the rear door open all the time probably doesn’t help. I confess though, that I haven’t been on a non conductor route in hot weather so haven’t been able to judge for myself.
To add spice to the controversy, what about double bendy buses like the ones run in many cities in Europe? They have 4 doors.
WW: “the poorly designed wheelchair bay” – Actually, just about *all* buses have a poorly designed wheelchair bay, in that the demand for parking yourself backwards is fine but no bus actually has the room to turn around in (given one goes up the ramp forwards). The NB4L is actually slightly better though in my experience.
@ 100 and thirty – the S Stock’s air con works because it is actually air con and train builders now have decent experience with trying to make it work. The NB4L does NOT have air conditioning. It has an air cooling system which struggles hugely with the immense heat generated at the rear of the bus combined with, one some routes, an open platform in the same area. Trying to suck in air via vents over a hot engine/battery area was never going to work. Anyone who saw the NB4L on its very first run will have noticed the upper deck “steaming up” somewhat and it wasn’t just down the excitement levels of those on the bus. 😉 TfL and Wrightbus have had specialist engineers in umpteen times and the problem still isn’t fixed because it’s intrinsic to a poor design. We then had years of denials despite years of social media and other commentary from people complaining about the travelling conditions in warm / hot weather. Then we get a “oh we have listened to our customers” routine about fitting opening windows but we have yet to see a single bus with such windows. TfL tweeted the other day that “most” buses would be sorted out by the coming Summer but it would be reassuring if the new buses being delivered were emerging with opening windows and none of them have done.
The NB4L cannot be air conditioned in the way it is done for the Far East because it involves a heavy refrigeration unit at the back of the bus, extra fuel / power consumption and extra weight to get the chilled around the vehicle. The NB4L is already immensely heavy and air con would take it way over the permissible axle loadings for a two axle bus. Almost all HK and Singapore air conditioned deckers are tri-axles but, to Alexander Dennis’s great credit, they managed to produce an air conditioned two axle Enviro 400 for use on the Central – Stanley routes run by Citybus HK. They required a waiver from the HK government for their axle loadings and they are diesels not hybrids. However moving on again ADL have now developed an Enviro 500 tri-axle hybrid double deck with air conditioning and it’s being trialled in HK. And in another development, just to prove my point that the market place does respond to market pressure, both ADL and Volvo / Wrightbus have produced 12.8m long tri-axle deckers for Kowloon Motor Bus and these are being trialled on particular busy routes in HK. I’m not even convinced that London really needs or can justify full air conditioning on its buses. We just need buses that have opening windows and ideally vents on the front upstairs that can generate a breeze within the vehicle. On those (non NB4L) buses that do have air cooling Londoners haven’t twigged that they work best if the opening windows aren’t opened!! However TfL haven’t told them NOT to open the windows to allow the system to work properly. Therefore we have the worst of all worlds in that heavy kit and venting is fitted to buses and never works properly because we have opening windows that are all opened as soon as the sun shines and temperatures rise. I’ve only ever been on a couple of London double deckers where windows were closed and the air cooler did its job well and provided a lovely cool and comfortable environment.
TfL seem reluctant to even try tri-axle deckers in London – even on something like the 607 Express which has longer distance trip lengths and is massively oversubscribed and uses most straight roads. I do understand TfL’s reluctance to use twin doored tri-axle deckers on some routes because the sheer volume carried over two decks would result in long dwell times thus pulling down efficiency on a route and increasing costs. However there are some routes in London where the capacity would be really beneficial but there are not such crucial dwell time issues as there are on routes like the 25 which can have vast numbers boarding and alighting all along the route.
Hong Kong has long just had to cope with ridiculous numbers travelling on their buses so long dwell times, even with Octopus Cards and cashboxes, are a fact of life and there are generous fleet sizes and spare vehicles deployed to fill gaps at crucial points if there are any delays. London simply isn’t organised in the same way nor funded to provide the level of service you see in Hong Kong.
As I said earlier we really need to get politicians (and everyone else) away from a fixation on vehicle design and features and on to just doing the drudge of making the bus network relentlessly efficient, reliable, dependable, safe and giving Londoners the travel options and capacity they need. No more gimmicks – we want boring hard work and solid performance and improvement.
@WW – “Trying to suck in air via vents over a hot engine/battery area was never going to work” – Indeed, except my VW Beetle had just such air ducts surrounding the exhaust manifold to *heat* the saloon – enough to melt the soles of my DM boots if on too high! You’d think they’d learn.
100andthirty,
I am not actually all that far from WW’s position. I was focusing on the concept, not the product
It’s nice to know someone else can draw a distinction between the two.
Another design “feature” is the cave-like environment at the rear of the top deck. It is quite common for modern buses to have no rear window on the lower (or only) deck, but the NBfL is unusual in having so little at the rear of the top deck – and what little there is, is mainly below waist level so only suitable for two year olds (or for drivers of following vehicles to admire the legs of passengers using the stairs
WW. You have pointed to a defect in specification or design of the air cooling or whatever they have fitted. Wandering off topic, but relevant to my next point, I am sure you have seen the endless debates in various professional and enthusiastic fora, both about S stock, before it was delivered, and about New Tube for London regarding whether air conditioning and air cooling had been specified and the precise definition of both terms. Much heat was generated and not much light ( or should it be cooling in this case?) The point is, and the requirement is, that customers feel acceptably cool in the summer and acceptably warm in the summer irrespective of the technology employed. In that respect, NB4L has failed, and if the design is doing what was asked of it and is working perfectly, then the specifiers or designers got it wrong.
I disagree that air conditioning is unnecessary on a bus, but then that starts a debate about whether buses are a bargain basement travel for the masses or quality transport to encourage people from their cars. I wonder whether TfL pursues the former in the suburbs and the latter in the centre?
I would finish by saying that the size/weight of any air conditioning kit needed on a UK bus will be smaller than that needed in HK or Singapore due to the significant differences in ambient conditions.
I make no comment on the desirability or otherwise of a bus design for London; buses are an interest but I have little knowledge of the market. My field was tube trains where there is not such thing as a standard product.
“cave-like environment ”
I’ve found a picture of the interior of the first low-floor double decker in London – DLA1
https://www.flickr.com/photos/anevin-tyleephotography/12620295774
Note how the high-backed longitudinal seats obscure the side windows. And that aperture in the rear bulkhead houses the route number blind – it is not a window.
It does seem to be a tendency on all public transport to assume passengers don’t value a view outside. The rot actually started with the Mark 3 railway coach, which used the same window spacing in both 1st and 2nd class, but a closer seat pitch in 2nd, which therefore did not line up with the windows. With seating arrangements having changed so much now, even 1st class doesn’t guarantee a window.
here is a Class 456 unit on SWT
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ljIMVeppGoA/VMt0-Y85W4I/AAAAAAAACJw/QAEQp8ekxwM/s1600/P1090837.JPG
about bendies.
What, if anything, was actually wrong with them?
That couldn’t be fixed, that is?
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve used them in Germany, down some very twiddly streets & there didn’t appear to be any problem.
Or was it a specific “hate” campaign got up by … ( I think I’ll leave the names out, because I suspect some people are overly hypersensitive about that )
Ditto, what’s wrong with 3-axle buses?
After all, London used to have them, some a very long time ago [ “LT” ] & some in living memory [ Dare I mention type “K” or “N1”? ] & other people use them, including some long-distance coaches in this country.
Are there any rational explanations in this field, at all? [ Rhetorical question, answers not necessarily required ]
Triaxles are used on some tour buses in London
http://londonbusesbyadam.zenfolio.com/img/s1/v21/p682886239-3.jpg
I don’t think K or NS types were triaxle, although as far as “living memory” is concerned, you would have to be well into your eighties to have seen them in service – the last K type was withdrawn in 1932 and the last NS in 1937. The LT type lasted until 1952.
Not all the routes chosen for bendies were ideal, but their ability to swallow queues on the 521 at Waterloo was legendary. As far as I am aware, despite the comments from certain high-profile cyclists, they were no more accident prone than any other London bus type.
As for manoeuvrability, I saw one execute a three point (well, thirteen point!) turn on Cheapside once, after the driver had missed a diversion sign.
Bendies – apart from the false or exaggerated claims about risks to cyclists and faredodging that were created by certain journalists and politicians, the big problem so far as I know was the length of the buses causing serious problems in certain locations where traffic light controlled junctions were close together – so that they could either not make progress at all because a long enough gap would never appear, or block the entire junction for a lengthy period of time while forcing their way in. My personal experience of this was with the convergence of multiple artic-operated routes at the junction of Bloomsbury Street and New Oxford Street and along the front of Centre Point, and someone else commented in an earlier thread about problems with 149s at the junction of Tooley Street and London Bridge and entering London Bridge bus station.
Greg,
I don’t think anything is actually wrong with 3-axle buses but we appear to have a rule that stage buses cannot exceed 12 tonnes (or maybe tons) laden weight. There seems to be no underlying logic to this as tourist coaches with 3-axles are generally permitted to use the same roads.
What, if anything, was actually wrong with them?
That couldn’t be fixed, that is?
I know you are referring to bendies but I feel the same about NBfL. Clearly Walthamstow Writer and others don’t like the layout, lack of rear upstairs window, small upstairs windows etc. but I don’t have a problem with any of that. To me, the frustration of NBfL is that I think it could be good though I accept it will forever be a marmite bus. I can’t believe that the things that are wrong, as opposed to personally subjectively disliked, are not fixable.
If the NB4L remains more expensive than similar alternatives, isn’t that a ‘wrong’? The argument for it has to be based on it providing superior performance in same way or other.
@Greg/timbeau – well, then, try tri-axle trolleybuses – well nigh universal on London routes.
@Philip – perhaps the artic drivers on the 507 were unusually skilled but it never seemed to be a problem there, even when the light spacing was ridiculously close and combined with an absurdly close stop spacing – eg in Victoria Street between the House of Fraser and Victoria Station. The villain of the piece seemed to be Ken’s demands for all-pedestrian phases at the lights which meant that some sets of lights never cleared for two or three cycles (even when a conventional bus, or indeed, no bus, was present).
@Greg
“what’s wrong with 3-axle buses?”
On a low floor bus, you would have six wheels taking up floor space instead of only four. By the time you’ve provided for the driver, the stairwell and a wheelchair space there would be no room for any seats at all.
Why were all but one London trolleybuses triaxle? Was it simply a perceived difficulty in getting that much traction through a single axle?
As I understand it the axles were not independently powered, so it cannot have been a practical limit on the physical size or power of the motors. (And anyway, apart from the solitary two-axle bus (no 62), there was a twin steer one (No 1671), which both seemed to work.
@timbeau – I believe the trolleybus design had something to do with axle loading and length.
@ Greg – there is nothing with any type of bus provided they’re used in the right way on the right routes. Some logic rather than emotional clap trap is what is needed to get us back to sane decision making.
@ Timbeau – really don’t understand your comment about “no seats”. I’ve used tri-axle deckers of varying lengths in Hong Kong and have never boarded one with no seats on the lower deck. The buses were also low floor so had wheelchair bays and dual doors. I am surprised you’d make such an inaccurate remark. Clearly the thing to do is to try to deploy longer tri-axle DD vehicles if the route characteristics / demand makes it sensible. HK is different because of local axle loading rules plus the very high demand levels which means you get tri-axles even on routes which have physical constraints limiting the use of longer buses (e.g. routes to the Mid Levels in HK Island).
Re WW,
Agree completely there are loads of seats on the triaxles I’ve been on (HK and Dublin). In London the key would be choosing route that have relatively low passneger churn so passengers are happier to go upstairs.
Interestingly AD are later this year going to build some triple axle AD 500s for St Gallen (SUI) with 3 doors and 2 staircases sounds remarkably similar to what London might want.
timbeau
“K” & “N1” were Trolleybus types(!)
As Graham H has noticed …
@Greg
“K and N1”
light dawns!
triaxles – I was exaggerating, of course, but three sets of wheels inevitably take up more floor space than two, and the seats perched on top of the wheel arches are not easy for mobility impaired people to get up into. (Not all disabled people bring their own chair…………)
Of course if three axles allow a longer bus then there may be an improvement in floor space, but the two axle NbfL is already considered too long for some London routes, so I doubt there is much scope for a longer bus.
@ Timbeau – hence all my carefully crafted words about the right bus for the right route and not saying one type should override others (unlike current policy for Zone 1 routes). London can be more picky and selective about what bus type runs where and obviously has to be where there are physical constraints impinging on vehicle width / length / manouevrability.
No surprise here the Boris bus has reached its greatest extent…
@ SHLR – not sure why it’s taken the Guardian quite so long to realise the Mayor has done what he said he would do. The fact remains that while no more are being ordered they are still in build for a few more months and several more routes are due to be inflicted with the wretched things including routes 48, 76 and 254 as well as a mini network of “EL” routes in Barking. I know it wasn’t feasible to cancel the order that Boris dashed through with indecent haste but I’m not happy that two main routes that I do use from Zone 1 out to Zone 3 are being lumbered with them.
It will be interesting to see quite what does get ordered in their stead in terms of electric or hydrogen powered double deckers. I understand TfL are also looking at how they can combine some of the emerging technologies together as well as continuing to experiment with different charging technologies for “virtual” electric buses which recharge batteries at route termini.
Having read the comments on Khans decision to stop ordering Borisbuses well many of them are not suitable for this site and have little to do with buses . One would think Khan is destroying London heritage instead of a bus that was so badly designed that nobody other than Mayor Boris has actually ordered a single one since production began which proves how nobody wanted these buses.
The fact that a new version without the rear entrance is now on the market the SRM(?) is not mentioned and London will still get new buses only they will be bought by private bus companies and not TFL thus saving Londoners money is totally ignored.
The reality is the bus design is now nearly a decade old and its old fashioned diesel bus with some batteries while modern buses are now all electric or hydrogen and are far better designed inside and out with greater capacity without rear entrance or 2nd staircase.
With 1000 Borisbuses then perhaps Khan could announce a competition for someone to design a better interior for these buses which could include sealing off rear entrance ( if it can’t be removed like centre entrances are when buses leave London service) and removal of 2nd rear stairs allowing more seats on lower deck which hopefully will face the direction of travel !
At least Kens Artic buses found further use but the same may not apply to Borisbuses well unless someone wants to set up a mobile sauna business!
I reckon a new article ” Wither Borisbuses ” might feature on this site in 2017 considering what to do with these 1000 buses given that just throwing them away would repeat the needless waste Boris did with Artic buses which could have easily remained on red arrow routes 507/521 and even an expanded network of these routes linking mainline stations and thus continued use of about 100 Artic buses but as they say Dogma took priority…
So can anything be done to improve these buses or is scrapping via bus tender system where bus companies buy new buses as Borisbuses simply move routes and gradually get scrapped the only option ?
Could Artics return on heavily used central London routes given their greater capacity means fewer buses needed and they were far more accessible with space for at least 2 wheelchairs and moved the crowds at mainline stations? Lessons learned from last time would mean they would not be used on long routes like the 18 and 25 which simply encouraged fare dodgers .
The extra entrance is the most useful thing about them. Great for crowd shifting at bus stops in the central area. Now they are getting opening windows they should be fine in summer. No point scrapping them until they are old enough to be scrapped.
@ Melvyn – you seem to be carefully ignoring the fact that TfL owns several of the electric and hydrogen buses that are in use. You are also ignoring the fact that a lot of this technology is not yet mature or affordable hence why trials are continuing and more are planned. We should also note in passing that many of the trials secure EU funding and this funding source may well be lost in a few years time thus imposing more strain on TfL’s budget and / or pressure to “mature” a technology or design faster than may be prudent. Now where has that happened recently? TfL is also having to fund, directly or indirectly, the electrical infrastructure at garages for electric buses or recharging points in bus stations and is out to tender for a possible second hydrogen supply point at a garage(s).
It is quite clear that TfL will keep buying, via the route contracts, diesel or diesel hybrid buses until 2018 with the exception of a few routes run with single deckers in Central London. The diesel buses (cleaned up / modified to euro6 spec) that we do have will be in service for a great many years yet because it is unaffordable to scrap them. That applies to the NB4L too. They won’t be scrapped or modified in the Mayor’s first term. There is not the cash. If Mr Khan wins a second term, unlikely in my view, then something might give then. It is far more likely that NB4Ls will be cascaded off Central London routes onto suburban double deck routes to while away their existence in London. Poor suburbs is all I can say.
We can forget about bendy buses too. They won’t be coming back. TfL and the operators have a tough two years to try to prove emerging technologies as well as modifying thousands of buses by 2018. That is going to take buses out of use for a number of hours / days (depending on the work) plus changes to maintenance regimes. Given that many fleets are highly utilised with not much float it’s going to be a challenge to keep services going. TfL haven’t even managed to get opening windows in all the NB4Ls yet – that’s taken months and months longer than it was supposed to do.
The other reason why bendy buses should not come back is that they are inefficient in road space compared to a conventional double decker. That is, in terms of people per square metre of road space.
Some debate would be (in theory) possible about the road occupancy of bendies versus double-deckers, involving staircases, standing passengers, space between buses, dwell time at stops, swept envelopes, and doubtless many other factors. But since there is no realistic prospect of bendies being re-introduced to London in the short or medium term, and since these matters have been thrashed to death on this site and in many other places, let’s refrain from re-running it here now.
This is probably not the right space but I keep wondering in this post NB4L world, what are the costs of the various alternatives.
My local London General garage is currently having its buses replaced by hybid EH’s and WHV’s.
For the passenger the EH seems a much more pleasant and comfortable option. Are there huge differences in price?
I’v recently been on a Metroline TE hybrid on the 332. That probably qualified as the most comfortable bus I travelled on in 2016. A world away from the WHV’s. Are they a Rolls Royce in terms of prices?
@ AP – I don’t have up to date numbers but I think standard hybrid double deckers are around £300-£310k. The NB4L was always bought at a premium to that although there was a price reduction on the last batch with the premium being around £25k per vehicle.
I doubt there is very much in it between an Alexander Dennis product (TEH, EH) or the Wright bodied Volvo hybrid (WHV) as several operators dual source or swap between types. Choices tend to be more about what can be delivered at a given point to meet contract needs or a particular engineering preference by an operator or at garage level. The Alexander Dennis buses are integrals so are designed from the “ground up” and avoid some of the foibles you see with the Volvo buses with their odd engine arrangements affecting rear seat layouts. Nonetheless all of them are vastly more comfortable, brighter and airier than a NB4L and that’s even with London’s fairly basic interior specs. Rather “posher” interiors are specced by operators outside of London where they use that as a marketing tool to get people to use buses.
@WW – ADL do of course also body other manufacturers chassis – such as both Volvo and Scania for Stagecoach.
It seems according to London Live tonight that hundreds of Borisbuses are going to have to be withdrawn from service due to safety issues on the rear doors which are not staying closed while in service and adding further costs to TFL budget .
So it seems the problems with these buses continue.
Re Melvyn,
The safety issue is apparently that when the rear door do open unexpectedly and the interlock does work very effectively so the bus come to a very sudden halt as the brakes are applied very quickly. Presumably there was a accident caused by a Boris Bus stopping without the driver intending to…
Please see extract from Evening Standard report giving details of this problem. –
Gareth Powell, TfL’s director of strategy and contracted services, told the Standard that Wrightbus would be carrying out the update and it would not cost TfL anything.
“The fault we identified would only occur at very low speed and if the driver doesn’t follow the correct procedure,” he said.
“As a precaution, the manufacturer, Wrightbus, is carrying out a software update at no cost to Transport for London.”
TfL said that the recall notice had occurred because of an incident last November.
The bus driver had repeatedly pressed the door close button overloading the system and causing it to open the door.
The bus was moving – at under five miles per hour – at the time which meant it suddenly halted and a passenger was “slightly hurt”.
TfL added that more than half of the affected buses have already been updated.
Wasn’t one of Boris’s reasons for these buses the open rear platform?
@Chris Mitch
It wasn’t one of his reasons – it was the only reason, and the only thing that distinguishes it from any other modern double decker..
@ Melvyn – please get your facts right. The buses are subject to a “recall”. This does NOT mean hundreds are to be withdrawn. The identified issue also only affects those vehicles fitted with a sliding, plug door at the back. Approximately 500 of the buses, with the inward turning rear door are NOT affected by this issue. I’m no fan of the NB4L but it is important that issues like recalls, which affect all sorts of buses and all manufacturers, are not subject to inaccurate reporting or political grandstanding (as I saw earlier via the Standard website). It is quite clear the problem is understood, has been identified and a preventative measure is being implemented. This is how you would expect things to be done especially when the buses can operate safely if the driver follows the right procedure (as noted in the quote in your second post).
@WW
The press do tend to exaggerate these things. They recently reported that the new mayor is going to scrap the entire NBFL fleet, when in fact he is simply not going to order any more.
Even Boris didn’t scrap the bendybuses – most were sold on.
The open rear platform wasn’t anything novel when the Routemasters were built, but was adopted from trams. British first-generation trams are unlike anything on the continent.
For example, after World War I, the tram network in Prague was expanded to reach outlying parts of the city, but many of the trams had been scrapped to provide metal for ammunition in World War I. To cope with the shortfall in capacity, horse-drawn trams were coupled to the new Ringhoffer motor units & used as trailer units. This meant that they required a run-around at the end of the line, which the inner-city termini did not have. Rather than building run-arounds, the lines were extended to the outskirts of the city, & loops were built at the ends. Subsequent trams therefore did not need to be able to go both ways, & were built with a cab only at the front & doors only on the right.
In London meanwhile, the tram network never served places with enough room for a loop. The solution was to use single-unit double-decker trams, of about the same capacity as a Ringhoffer formation, with a vestibule that could be converted into a driver’s cab. These trams had doors at the front right & back left. As almost all stops were on the left, people expected the door to be about 10 metres back from where the front would stop, & so it was considered logical to have the same door position for the buses that replaced the trams.
I’m afraid that, as a piece of history, what you say is , ahem, not the case, so far as the UK is concerned. Horse buses – around since 1829 – and their predecessor “long coaches” – around since about 1780 – all had rear entrances. Double deck horsebuses,which appeared in connexion with the Great Exhibition (1851) , also had a staircase at the rear. The earliest trams (after 1861) were mostly double ended but there were exceptions,including cars whose whole, single-ended, body could be turned on the frame. By no means all of these early cars were double deck.
So, double deck buses preceded double deck tramcars by 10 years and both modes were entered from the rear. Buses didn’t imitate trams, but contrarywise, in that respect.
Ignoring the Embankment loop itself, there was at least one London tramway loop facility – eg the WW1? loop close to what was eventually Clapham South Northern Line station – but the operating procedures left something to be desired, it appears, as the supplementary trailers didn’t last very long. One suspects that the combined power-to-weight ratio of 2xdouble-deck tram bodies, laden with passengers, with motors on only the front unit, wasn’t liked.
Rear open platforms were also a feature of Paris buses for a long time – perhaps not a coincidence given that buses were introduced to London by the French.
@Ian J — Whilst I agree that the LGOC was a company financed by the French (nothing new is there?) and that Pascal’s Carosses a cinq sous are generally thought to be world’s first bus service in the 1670s, I don’t think there were any direct organisational or financial links between Shillibeer and the French. At the time when Shillibeer was starting up, the only French operations seem to have been the small scale, but famous “Omnibus” operation in Nantes.
BTW those rear platform French buses so redolent of Maigret – are you sure the entrance was to the rear platform? My distinct impression was that many of them were front -entrance with access to the rear open platform only via the saloon.
All open platform Paris buses which I remember or have seen recently use the rear platform as the entrance and exit. For example this one (and Maigret gets a mention) or this one (seen in Winchester Broadway). However, other variants may have existed.
@ Malcolm / Graham H – I think you are both right but it depends on the era you’re talking about. Yes older Parisian buses had boarding via an open rear platform. However in later years the Renault SC10 had conventional doors for boarding and alighting into the main saloon from where the open platform was accessed. The last ones ran on route 29 up to 2002 apparently. I can recall seeing one on route 20 at Gare de Lyon but that was probably in the 1980s. A fair number of photos on Flickr support both of your recollections.
@Malcolm – you have some pretty lengthy routes in Winchester – the 3 runs to Pigalle from the King Alfred memorial presumably?
Unfortunately, I no longer have my handy guide to historic Parisian buses, so I can’t tell what types ran and when. I certainly remember the rear entrance model in the photographs.
Some French buses in the 70s and 80s had rear “balconies” with no actual entry or exit as a nostalgia feature.
While we are talking about the New Bus for London it is worth noting that a new TfL funding paper for a range of initiatives in Surface Transport has appeared (next week’s Programmes and Investment Cttee). It covers authority for a number of future years and on the bus side of things there is a budget “contingency” allowance to cover the risk of battery replacement on the NB4Ls. The specific amount of money is not identified for the battery issue as the funding provision of almost £70m also covers replacement of some of the Dial a Ride minibus fleet. The joys of owning a unique fleet of buses.
The paper also touches on works for trams, DLR and London Overground but with limited descriptions of the scope. There is a rather puzzling reference to “4-car to 5-car enhancements” which I suppose might relate to the mini order for 5 car class 710s for the NLL.
@Graham H: Yes, a bit of a stretch for me to say the French introduced buses to London, but in terms of vehicle design Shillibeer was pretty explicit that his omnibus was based on the ones he had been building in Paris – text of first advertisement for the service:
Omnibus. G. Shillibeer, induced by the universal admiration the above vehicle called forth at Paris, has commenced running one upon the Parisian mode from Paddington to the Bank
And the Compagnie Generale des Omnibus de Londres wasn’t just financed by the French – it was a French company (until 1859 at least).
@Phil: Similarly some London buses have notional rear platforms which aren’t used as such, also as a nostalgia measure.
@IanJ – I wonder. Much turns on the word “mode”. Shillibeer’s innovation was to offer short stage trips (as had been the case in Paris since 1828, and which Shillibeer, with his business interests in Paris, would have known about), rather than introducing a new vehicle type. Indeed,the few drawings of “long coaches” available suggest that Shillibeer’s bus was very similar to existing British vehicles ( as were the early French buses – there are only so many things you can do to a horsebus*). Marketing puff apart, it may be that the most important Gallicism adopted by Shillibeer was running to a fixed timetable. Certainly, the evidence of his drivers was that they didn’t wait around for a full load – a major complaint at the time.
As to the CGOL/LGOC, it is possible that there were other links besides ownership – again in the field of operating practices. One of the early lessons learned from the Pascal operation was that the coaches bunched (nothing new then!); Pascal examined the mathematical reasons for this and adjusted his operation to run as 6 bph instead every 10 minutes.Uniquely, the LGOC, and LBL today plan their service on busy routes as bph related to demand/capacity (often with “difficult” fractions of an hour implied by 9 bph and the like) rather than “every 6 minutes”. Although Pascal’s operation didn’t last long, it might be interesting to see whether his maths survived.
*Legally
@WW – Just as an aside, where you mention the “budget ‘contingency’ allowance to cover the risk of battery replacement on the NB4Ls”, do you have any statistics concerning the battery performance? It’s just that the solo battery-mode appears to be less and less these days, with far more running in engine-mode, trying to catch up the drain on the batteries. This was apparent long before the nights drawing in and the need for heating.
GF & others
It would appear that the Borisbuses were “just too soon” ( if you see what I mean ) as regards battery technology.
Re-fitting with a more modern design of batteries ( as used by such as Tesla ) would probably do the trick, but … how much would that cost & would it be worth it?
Which reminds me, the supposedly wonderful rechargeable-electric buses being trialled on the 69 … “it’s gorn ‘orribly quiet” on that front, also, which I take to mean that it has not been working as well as the pre-trial publicity was trumpeting before the fact?
Does anyone know what’s happening there?
From my own observations, the NB4Ls run in battery mode much longer than some of the subsequent models, whose engines are also much louder, rev higher, and feel more coarse. I’m not that observant to name and shame (but I think a recent so-called Enviro 400 comes to mind). I also find alighting from a rear door most convenient, as you have a good view of the traffic behind when pulling in, and can already be crossing the road before the bus departs. Perhaps I’m the only one who actually likes them.
Greg…..I have to say that hybrid technology is moving fast and anything in production is “just too early”. There is no reason why they couldn’t be upgraded as components need replacement.
@ Graham F – I haven’t seen any battery stats. The NB4L has become the bus no one talks about following the change of regime at City Hall. The last batch are slowly taking up service on route 267 in West London. Not a squeak about that from official channels. However the ongoing cuts to bus routes across London means more NB4Ls will likely become free in future meaning more routes will be converted.
@ Greg – not sure your dripping cynicism is warranted. The virtual electric deckers on the 69 are still in service – I’ve just checked. Each bus has been in regular service for months. Last official word I saw was that TfL wished to extend the trial period but remember this is a pan European project with limited funding. Just because there is not constant “hooplah” about an initiative does not mean it has failed. They are buses – the point is that they go about their business reliably and effectively. At some point I imagine the trial results will emerge but don’t ask me as to when.
@ NickBxn – I am not an expert on the technology but NB4Ls are designed to operate differently to other hybrid buses. Therefore it’s no great shock that Volvo / ADL hybrids will use their engine more. Some of the ADL vehicles can be fairly loud depending on which batch they are.
WW
Thanks ..
As a regular passer-by at Walthamstow bus station, I have looked out for them, but seen nothing obvious.
The Anglo-French link is alive and well in Bath. Our tourist ‘buses are run by RATP (front entry). It’s nice to see some ‘bus services back in public ownership.