In the comments following part 1 of The Future of the London Bus we saw how controversial just about every single aspect of a London bus can be. Size, style, configuration, means of procurement and many other aspects are hotly debated. Given that these aspects are interrelated it is not entirely surprising that it seems no two people can agree on what the London Bus ideally should be like. Nevertheless we will take a bold attempt at looking at the new technologies that might be underneath a future new bus for London.
Possibly one of the few things that can be agreed on is that there is no single bus design that is ideal for all routes in London, and that we will continue to see a variety of single and double deckers of different designs and different lengths with different numbers of doors supplied by different companies. We can probably identify little in common on the outside other than they will all be predominately red and all have the same style of blinds.
Even the history of London’s bus service clearly has different interpretations and the reasons for why we are where we are seem to be disputed. If what happened in the past is hotly disputed then it is almost inevitable that a look at what the future either will, or should, look like is going to ensure almost complete disagreement. In attempting to just look at one aspect of that – future technology and how the London Bus of the future will be powered – one can immediately see the traditionalists being pitted against those who want to embrace new technology, even if it hasn’t yet proved its worth.
The limits to growth
One surprising thing about the predicted growth of bus services in this time of rapid population increase is that there seems to be virtually no growth in the centre and only limited growth in the suburbs. Financial austerity and lack of road space in central London have been seen as possible explanations. One partial solution is to make buses bigger but people have recognised the downside in that solution because of the way buses struggle with our relatively narrow roads and the way they block junctions. Even the issue of long dwell times was raised. In a Oystercard society one would have thought such an issue would have been banished from a discussion about buses – but clearly not and it must be a genuine potential problem otherwise why go to such trouble to introduce a bus with three doors?
It comes back to air quality again
One reason given for the lack of any increase in bus service in central London is the concern over air quality. This does seem to be focusing the minds of TfL and the mayor and it is certainly the case that hybrid buses aren’t cheap and would have to save an awful lot of fuel to justify their existence purely on an economic basis. If one assumes that a London bus burns around 50,000 litres of fuel per year, takes into account that bus services don’t pay tax on fuel and that hybrid batteries only last for a few years anyway, one can see that the accountant does not have a particularly easy job producing a financial case for the hybrid bus. So one could argue that the money that one would expect to be spent on improving bus services is actually being spent in improving air quality.
Non-electric alternatives
When you are responsible for a fleet of over eight thousand diesel buses it is only right and proper that you investigate alternative options and this TfL has done. At one stage hydrogen looked very promising. In the past few years TfL have experimented off and on with hydrogen buses on route RV1 but, whilst the latest buses are still in service, there does not seem to have been any effort made to extend them beyond this one route. This is probably because they are very expensive indeed. It is also the case that, although hydrogen can be seen as a solution for getting rid of tailpipe emission at the point of use, it does not solve any energy issues because more energy in the form of electricity is required to extract the hydrogen from water than can be obtained from burning it as a fuel (and creating water). As such, hydrogen is merely an alternative to the battery.
There are of course various other gases apart from hydrogen that can be burned. The problem with these are that they are still hydrocarbons but in gaseous rather than liquid form. The main attraction of these fuels for taxis and other vehicles is that they don’t attract fuel duty – something that bus operators don’t pay anyway.
The answer’s electric
It does seem that the only current viable alternative to the diesel-engined bus is an electric, or a partially electric, vehicle in some form or other. There are various methods of getting electricity to the electric motor but ultimately it either comes from a battery aboard the vehicle or from a wire or two dangled above the vehicle or, exceptionally in the past, from an electrified conduit buried in the road.
Look no wires! This is Mile End tram change pit where trams changed over from an overhead wire to a conduit system in the road. The conduit system might have been aesthetically more pleasing but was not maintenance free and work to repair or renew the conduits would have been enormously disruptive. It would be hard to envisage such a system being installed today.
The Diesel-Electric Spectrum
One feature about the modern debate is that it should no longer be polarised as a diesel bus v trolleybus/tram debate. In the past they were the only options available. There was a very early attempt to introduce an electric bus in 1906 but sadly it was mainly done as a fraudulent scam to fleece investors.
It might be an electric bus without a diesel engine but it may still need diesel fuel!
Today we have the non-hybrid diesel bus at one end of the spectrum and include the current hybrid in both its forms. Nowadays we can also put the battery bus very near the other end of the spectrum as something that is almost pure electric. However, it seems that one still has to have a diesel storage tank on board to provide heat in winter as the batteries aren’t up to the task of heating the interior and probably never will be. One could probably make a case in London to argue that passengers will already be wearing a coat when it is cold and the bus quite warm with the heat of the passengers aboard but even then one has to consider the driver and give him/her a reasonable working environment.
The diesel bus
The diesel bus uses a diesel engine to power the bus and an alternator to generate what electricity it needs which is then fed into a battery (generally lead-acid) which provide electricity for electrical functions such as powered doors, lights and possibly some kind of air-conditioning. The diesel bus is actually fairly energy efficient providing one does not have to brake a lot. Obviously in central London one does brake a lot so it is not ideal here being both the worst polluting form of fuel at the point of use and one where a lot of energy is wasted.
The diesel bus with regenerative braking
The trouble with hybrids is that they are expensive. The large battery is expensive and the revised power train with electric motors is also expensive. At the same time capturing the energy from regenerative braking is not such a cost liability and a bus tends to use a lot of electricity just in ancillary functions – air-conditioning, powered ramps, lights, doors, CCTV, iBus and even (not in London) Wifi. A fairly obvious thing to do for urban routes is to add regenerative braking and a reasonably sized battery, and use the regenerative braking to provide all the electrical power required. This is really a case of picking the low-hanging fruit and generally produces fuel savings around 10%.
Wrightbus market the idea of using regenerative braking to power the electrical requirements as “micro hybrid”. Of course it is not a hybrid anything but the term is less of a mouthful than a more correct name as well a convenient marketing term that helps position the product in the marketplace.
It is probably the case that if the objective was to reduce air pollution by buses in all of London then it would probably make far more economic sense just to specify that each new bus in London must be a “micro-hybrid” or better. Or rather specify maximum emissions permissible that require at least a micro-hybrid to achieve compliance. Of course a blanket reduction of emissions isn’t the objective, the objective is to get air pollution down in central London so this neat simplistic solution isn’t good enough.
The Parallel Hybrid Diesel Bus
The Parallel Hybrid Diesel Bus is a bit of a curious beast. It has additional weight and design restrictions compared to its series cousin but really comes into its own when largely used in conventional mode because, as it can behave like a conventional diesel bus, there are no electrical transmission losses and no needless charging/discharging of the battery. The problem is that, if it is used in conventional mode most of the time because there is limited braking going on, the need for an expensive hybrid is in fact questionable as the traffic conditions don’t really warrant it.
The Series Hybrid Diesel Bus
As stated in part 1 the series hybrid bus runs on pure electricity. The downside is that it has to lug around a diesel generator to create that electricity. There is clearly going to be a limit to its potential efficiency saving. Some expenditure of energy is just not recoverable – air resistance, tyre resistance, air-conditioning, door opening and closing – as well as losses within the system itself converting diesel energy into electrical energy. Around 40% energy saving is currently supposed to be achievable but it is hard to see how this really can be improved other than by a few percentage points.
The Conventionally Rechargeable Battery Bus
The fairly obvious dream situation is the battery bus. It runs all day on batteries and at night in a few hours it is plugged into the mains and completely recharged. The basic problem today is that the batteries are either heavy and/or expensive and/or liable to catch fire and take up a lot of space. One can trade off one against the other but right now there is not a perfect solution. To provide a bus with the most lightweight batteries available that would last all day would probably cost in the order of £500,000. In other words, for the price of three New Routemasters you could by sufficient batteries for two electric buses. It is entirely possible that a large part of the difference in price between an ADL Enviro 400H and a New Routemaster is largely down to the more generous battery capacity on the latter.
What does look promising is that there are multiple areas of technology development that appear to suggest that battery development is not only improving rapidly but will continue to do so for many years to come. This includes the battery’s close cousin, the supercapacitor which achieves the same function by different means. One must not forget that the proposed new trains for the Piccadilly Line due in service from 2022 onwards are relying on battery development to be sufficiently advanced to get a train to the next station in the event of a power failure.
Energy Live News report on the electric buses in London. For a more critical report there is this alternative.
Despite an ideal battery not yet being available, the battery bus is already present and operational in London as TfL is now running two electric buses in service. They run on lithium ion batteries but not the most expensive and energy dense type. At least with the conventional engine gone there is more space for these to be located. The batteries are the Lithium Ferrophosphate type which have the alleged advantage of being able to last for up to ten years. Like the New Routemaster, there have had to be design sacrifices made to fit in equipment necessary to provide propulsion.
The bus is loaded with an incredible 3 tonnes of batteries. This reduces its passenger carrying capacity. It is also difficult to find sufficient storage for this quantity of batteries and as a result the passenger forward view is rather limited due floor-to-ceiling battery storage and, like the New Routemaster upstairs, there is no rear window.
It is perhaps telling how little publicity TfL have given to the electric bus. They do not provide a timetable for their operation or even what route they will be on what day so they are difficult to try out. From the comments on the youTube clip above it appears that TfL are investigating all their options with an open mind but do not yet feel that with the current product available they are onto a game-changer. It is notable that there has been very little said about the initial cost of the vehicle which is not known.
The Trolleybus Battery Hybrid
Included for completeness in a look at what is technically possible is the the Trolleybus Battery Hybrid. This would probably not be quite like a diesel hybrid in that it makes little sense to store electricity in a battery when one can connect it directly from the overhead wire to the electric motors that power the vehicle. For that reason it would be a trolleybus and not an electric bus recharged using two overhead wires. This would be a very attractive proposition if one had an existing trolleybus network and wanted to extend its range without having to build a lot of new infrastructure.
It is difficult to see how this would be attractive in London, which would have to start again from scratch with overhead trolleybus wires and all the opposition that is likely to encounter. It would be expensive and an planning nightmare to implement – almost certainly needing a Transport and Works Act Order.
It should be noted that having a dual-mode trolleybus is nothing new either with batteries or an appropriately sized diesel-engine. It is obviously fairly simple to switch from wired to unwired. In reverse it currently requires the vehicle to be stationary and accurately positioned with the trolley poles below guides attached to the wire to ensure correct contact.
A youtube video showing a diesel hybrid trolleybus in Solingen switch to and from trolleybus mode. Thanks to Graham Feakins for providing the link.
With technology in such a state of flux it is hard to be sure that this would not rapidly become obsolete. If the technology had been around a few years ago it might have been an attractive proposition for East London Transit with the trolleybus charging the batteries on the reserved sections and running off the wires in places like Barking town centre. As it is, with money tight and this not yet being a cheap solution – remember those batteries are still extremely expensive – it is difficult to see how this would be attractive to TfL or the mayor.
The Induction Charged Bus
Finally we come to what many see as the most promising development yet for the future bus. Whilst it is recognised that the battery-powered bus is considered the ultimate goal, currently a requirement for a battery to power a bus all day is just not practical for various reasons, the most significant of which is the current cost of the batteries.
Electric inductively rechargeable bus in Milton Keynes. Note that lack of space on the low floor bus means that one of the three batteries is on the roof. Although clearly not in public service on this occasion, one route is normally entirely operated by eight of these buses.
It is long been recognised that if, by some means, one could recharge the bus either by small but frequent recharges at busy stops or a bigger recharge at the terminus stand then one could ensure that the drain on the battery was more gradual. The goal would be to keep the battery sufficiently charged so that it could run all day without the battery getting depleted to the extent that the life of the battery was reduced. An electric bus is typically recharged at around 20kW and it needs six to eight hours overnight to fully recharge it. Clearly, even ignoring all the Health & Safety implications, the idea of plugging in a bus to a conventional recharging point at the terminus wasn’t really going to be very practical as the benefit would either be tiny or the time required to recharge would make the bus very unproductive.
The perceived solution to the recharging problem on buses is the induction recharger. Think of a wireless recharger for an iPhone but on a much larger scale. A coil in the road rapidly creates a magnetic field and then collapses it. Meanwhile a similarly size coil on the bus takes advantage of this to create electricity to recharge the batteries. The technology isn’t really new. It is basically what happens in a traditional transformer except that the coils are intertwined for maximum efficiency. By separating the coils there is energy loss – but not that much providing the coils are close together. Clearly, getting the coils close together is not a major problem if designing an iPhone recharger but a bit more difficult if designing a bus recharger.
At the time of taking this photo this must have been the most photographed bus stop in the world. The charging plate is quite substantial but there is little to show for it at the bus stop itself
One might have intuitively thought that an induction recharger for a bus just would not be practical given that it takes six to eight hours to fully charge a battery bus. Here the advantage of an induction charger comes in. Instead of charging at 20kW it potentially recharges at 120kW. Or to put in in simple terms, if one ignores energy transmission losses, ten minutes charging at the bus stand is equivalent to an hour’s recharge at the bus garage. In
Mannheim the induction chargers recharge at 200kW.
There are energy losses in induction recharging but these are reported to be well under 10%. Unfortunately this is actually more of a problem than might initially be thought. The energy lost is given out as heat and though it is small in as a proportion of the total it still amounts to a few kilowatts, which means that cooling has to be built in to the charger so that it is dissipated. Of course, if an induction charger is only used for a short time, such as at an intermediate bus stop, one may be able to avoid the need to provide cooling but then one has a big investment for a very short period of use.
Roadside cabinets for recharging plate
Induction charged buses are certainly not new but most implementations so far have been fairly experimental. South Korea even does induction recharging on the move but it is notable that reports indicate that they only have two buses.
Of far more interest to us is a route in Milton Keynes that is running today with induction recharged buses. It shows that it does work but it also shows that there are potential problems that might not be such an issue in Milton Keynes but may be more of one in London.
Space is needed for the batteries and that is not easy to find in a bus. In Milton Keynes, with its single door single decker buses, two of them can be hidden under a step leading to the rear of the bus, but such a solution would probably not work well in London with the vast majority of routes operated by buses with separate entrances and exits. Worse still, in Milton Keynes they have resorted to putting a third battery on the roof. Judging by the pictures it looks as if the same is the case in South Korea. The unsatisfactory situation probably comes about because they are adapting a bus chassis and body for use as induction recharged bus rather than going to considerable expense of designing a few buses for what is still only a long-term trial.
Positioning markers on the bus door and the kerb to enable the driver to position the bus accurately over the recharging plate. Crude but effective.
A lesser issue with induction charging is that one has to position the bus pretty accurately over the recharger. This means that one has to select where this is done quite carefully so that the bus can be parked exactly where it is required (and not blocked by conventional buses for example) and it can stand there for around ten minutes. The latter condition would mean that somewhere like Victoria bus station, where buses pull forward as the one in front leaves, would not be ideal even if it was equipped with multiple chargers. There is also the issue that one needs somewhere to install the roadside cabinets associated with recharging.
The collector plate on the bus is lowered so that the batteries can be recharged.
One To Look Out For?
As this video makes clear, induction rechargeable buses are still experimental and need to be fully evaluated. Despite that, the physics behind it is sound and with the expected future developments in battery technology it is hard to see how they will not be at least one of the potential candidates for the London bus of the future. It is not a foregone conclusion though and, apart from not yet being a mature technology, there is the problem that all the development so far has been on single deckers. The main reason TfL would want to look at this would probably be because of air quality targets. This would mean buses in central London. As it is highly unlikely any future mayor would endorse a return to bendy-buses this would mean double deckers. This would be in contrast to the bus manufacturers and other interested parties who would probably be more cautious and initially develop the technology using single decked vehicles.
As this presentation shows, London Buses are taking emission reduction extremely seriously and are already intending to trial induction charging. If TfL went down the induction charging route they would probably want to use this technology on double deck buses. The problem would be that in all probability there is no suitable double decker in existence. A new bus would have to be designed from scratch in order to accommodate suitable space for batteries and one wonders if any manufacturer would take the risk on their own given the limited guaranteed market. So it could be a case, yet again, of TfL specifying their own requirements and not buying off-the-peg buses. That means they would also have to deal with the bad publicity of all the failures and design issues encountered in a product that was pushing the limits of current technology. And, if the induction recharged double decker bus became a reality in central London in a few years time, one then asks what would happen to those iconic New Routemasters?
Thanks to London Transport Museum for permission to use the photograph of the Mile End tram change pit.
Mayoral press release spotted by Greg which is easy to miss as curiously isn’t replicated on TfL site
https://www.london.gov.uk/media/mayor-press-releases/2015/06/pure-electric-double-decker-london-bus-trial-announced-at-world
“The world’s first purpose-built purely electric double-decker bus will enter passenger service in London this year,” I think that the word “battery” is missing. If not, this statement is a trifle misleading.
The bus is described as “zero emissions at tailpipe”. This would imply that it has one. There must be a less cumbersome way of expressing this. Any ideas?
“Sir Peter Hendy CBE, London’s Transport Commissioner, said:…. ” presumably he was still in post yesterday.
He is – according to this article Parry-Jones is to step down when he completes here years in post, some time next month (19th July, I think) so unless a spell of “Gardening Leave” is required between leaving one post and taking up the other I would assume Sir Peter is still at TfL until then.
@Nameless : I would agree about the word “battery” – or some other acknowledgment of the fact that double-decker trolleybuses were once widespread in London. Greg Tingey did point this out earlier today, but his comment was removed. For a range of reasons, but one of them was because the semantic issue of whether a trolleybus is a kind of bus has already been discussed at great length here, and the moderators do not wish that ground to be covered again.
@Nameless : “zero emissions at tailpipe”
It could be argued that a tailpipe emitting nothing must be of zero diameter, and thus absent. But, as you realise, they are tying themselves in knots here, because they know that describing the bus as “zero emissions” will be challenged because a power station somewhere may be emitting something to power this bus.
@nameless
“zero emissions at tailpipe”. There must be a less cumbersome way of expressing this. Any ideas?”
“No tailpipe emissions”. (If it has no tailpipe, it can’t produce any tailpipe emissions)
Do we have tailpipes in England?
Zero emissions at tailpipe is very different to no emissions at tail pipe.
Zero emissions at tailpipe is actually shortened from “zero POLLUTANT emissions at tailpipe”. So fuel cell vehicles are included in this category (the only emission is water vapour) but not in the “No Tailpipe Emissions” category.
The Zero category is the one that matters for air pollution in urban environments.
Does ‘zero emissions at tailpipe’ cover some suspicions that there may be ( minor ) emissions elsewhere on the vehicles?
Awful mangling of English and facts. No tailpipes, so why mention them? Emphatically not the first all-electric buses in London, by a million miles. ‘Zero nitrogen oxide emissions’ would sum it up without strangling themselves in trying to re-use buzzy phrases from a previous press release. TfL’s techies should put their collective feet down and insist on factual wordings in press releases.
Anyone have a link to a picture of these Chinese wonder buses?
Boris might be mildly embarrassed to find that York has had a battery powered double-decker bus running on sightseeing trips since last year.
@Fandroid : I don’t think Boris does embarrassed. This Guardian article has a picture, and includes mention of the York bus and indeed of 1909 Electrobus, but not trolleybuses. They remain airbrushed out of history.
Re Fandroid,
See my post above.
No – tailpipe is tailpipe or equivalent i.e. emission anywhere on the vehicle. (excluding driver or passengers)
This usually means the only emission if any is water vapour. i.e no CO2, CO, HC, NOx etc.
TfL aren’t using buzzy phrases they are using accepted worldwide engineering terminology with precise definitions that have been around at least 20 years.
“Zero emissions at tailpipe” then became a legally defined term by California Air Resources Board (CARB) in 2002 in California State law and is accepted as legal definition in the UK (DfT usage) that has been enforced by the Advertising Standard Authority. What is wrong with using it as the wording is incredibly factual and has a precise definition?
http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/gloss.htm#Z
@ Fandroid – there are no images of the new Chinese decker available yet. I assume that’s because BYD are still building them in RHD form.
@WW
BYD is a Chinese bus (and auto) manufacturer. I believe from the context that RHD stands for right hand drive.
@ LBM – both correct. Sorry I wasn’t clearer.
I owe BYD and readers an apology. Seems the double decker does exist and is under test. There are photos on the CLondoner92 blog.
http://clondoner92.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/london-mayor-announces-worlds-first.html?spref=tw
The BYD website has some specification info and drawings.
http://www.bydeurope.com/vehicles/ebus/types/10_2.php
The rear lower deck looks like it might be very full of batteries and other kit!
From an aesthetics point of view the buses look similar to those from the a decade or so ago. They haven’t really caught up with more modern styling. Light blue plastic interiors remind me of catching the N3 from Trafalgar Square in the late 90s or early 2000s when Connex thought the Fisher Price look would subdue a stomach churning with too many pints.
@fandroid
Over a thousand six wheelers at about 30,000 miles a year for about 30 years makes it more like a billion miles. (Although at the time it would have been called a milliard).
Those images of the BYD (Build Your Dreams?) bus have some shocking retro features (in the post NB4L era): A window at the back of the upper deck; modern seating; a bright interior and (worst of all) yellow grab poles!
@ngh. While accepting that ‘zero tailpipe emissions’ might be the world-wide accepted engineering terminology, it doesn’t help in a press release sent out to mainstream media. Something that makes immediate sense to Joe Public would be a lot more in order. Too many such releases are either in jargon only understood by insiders, or are dumbed down into Janet and John speak. A happy medium is needed and that phrase ain’t it.
Even more revolutionary in age of 37.7c/98f tempertures BYD has windows that open – who knows maybe one day all buses will have this feature …!
I notice it takes several hours to charge which begs the question as to whether charging facilities should be provided to terminus a proposal I read for a trial on route 69 at Canning Town and Walthamstow Bus Stations .
@ Melvyn – it is worth noting that the induction charging panel is now installed at Walthamstow Bus Station. I haven’t been to Canning Town recently but I know works are ongoing there. The 69 trial is for a virtual all electric vehicle which has a diesel engine back up. There will be three ADL vehicles and the trial is scheduled for an October start date. At a guess I think TfL will try to run two of the three in daily service so they get regular recharging over a service day with the third bus as back up.
The BYD bus is a different technology and the terrain is relatively flat and straight. It is also worth saying that route 16 terminates at a garage at one end so substitution with another bus will be easy if there are issues or a driver is rostered who is not familiar with the bus. It is worth saying that route 69 is possibly the tougher test as it carries a lot more people than route 16 despite being a suburban service. I have seen a floor plan today for the BYD bus which shows a limited number of lower deck seats and a large area at the back occupied by the batteries.
All the other routes using all electric buses also terminate at (or very close to) a garage at one end of the route – the 312, 507, 521 and H98. Clearly this approach for the trial routes is entirely sensible in the event of problems. Once the technology becomes more reliable and effective then I expect TfL will equip a route where the termini are remote from a garage. London General have two new Irizar all electric buses due – one is definitely in London – for use on the 507 and 521. It is suggested that the new contracts for the 507 and 521 will require full allocations of all electric buses as preparation for the ULEZ. I suspect the same may apply to the C10 which is also out to tender.
@WW
“I have seen a floor plan today for the BYD bus which shows a limited number of lower deck seats and a large area at the back occupied by the batteries.”
So hard luck if you are mobility-impaired.
And lots of dwell time as everyone has to negotiate the stairs.
WW
t is worth noting that the induction charging panel is now installed at Walthamstow Bus Station
Where?
I was there on Wednesday & noticed nothing – is it up in the NE corner?
@ Greg – it is on one of the stands directly opposite Stop E (used by W11, W12, W15, 275 towards Higham Hill, Barkingside etc) on the east side of the bus station. Often has a bus parked on top but you can see it nonetheless.
@Melvyn
It is very difficult to have opening windows and air cooling on a bus.
Travelled on a New Routemaster on the 73 on Wednesday and the air cooling was working well on the upper deck.
If the windows had been open hotter air would have been drawn into the bus as it moved forwards.
The seating layout on the BYD is an absolute joke. There are 17 seats on the lower deck, of which only 4 (!) are accessible from floor level. By contrast, the new Enviro400 hybrid is only 10cm longer than the BYD (10.3m vs BYD 10.2m) and has 25 seats downstairs, of which 10 are accessible from floor level.
Given how much emphasis TfL has put in recent changes to bus specifications on the number of seats accessible from floor level in double-deckers, this suggests to me their priorities have shifted towards air quality rather than bus functionality and accessibility.
@Straphan
If accessibility were the absolute priority, we would still have the bendies. No reason why you can’t have a battery-powered one, either.
straphan: The seating layout on the BYD is an absolute joke.
Your comment is justifiably harsh regards seating layout but reads as if you consider that the BYD is a prototype for a future squadron delivery. Isn’t the design more for technical assessment of future electric options?
@Kit/Straphan
Only 54 seats in a double decker? It is almost, but not quite, a single decker, albeit with a very high floor.
It really does seem as if they should stop messing around and get those trolley wires up. No reason why a modern trolley bus should not be a hybrid as well with a reasonable off-wire capability outside some wired-up central areas (or the steeper hills).
Many commenters here would agree with Fandroid’s suggestion of trolley wires, some with enthusiasm. But I suspect a majority would also agree that it’s not going to happen any time soon. It would be interesting to understand why. Is it only due to a wish to be stepping boldly into the future and putting behind us things of the past? Or corporate inability to admit to mistakes? (Corporate in the loosest sense, because neither the authorities that scrapped them nor the then-controlling minds are still about).
There are real difficulties about getting public acceptance of overhead wires, of course. But these have been overcome (often with difficulty and/or expense) in the case of tramways. There are also issues around road works, road alterations and so on. There is overtaking. Any other problems?
@Kit Green: Given how much pressure there is to reduce air pollution in London and how much political drive there is towards electric buses as the answer to this particular problem, I think we will certainly see electric double-deckers in service way before technological advances manage to reduce the spatial requirement for on-board batteries to the amount of space required by a standard diesel engine or a hybrid. As it stands, one of the principal user groups of buses – the elderly – doesn’t really have anywhere to sit on board that bus.
@timbeau: Getting rid of the bendies is a slightly different story – it was far more an issue of perception than any real issues with them.
@Fandroid: Elsewhere in Europe, the discussion is going much the other way: what is the point of all those kilometres of wires when hybrid/electric buses can match trolleybuses in almost every way. Trouble is there is no upper deck in their equation – the discussion is centred solely around rigid/articulated vehicles.
@Kit Green
Language question on the correct collective noun for a subset of buses. An entire group of buses is obviously called a fleet. But I’ve not heard the ‘squadron’ you’ve used. Is this the correct term? A ‘garage’ perhaps? Am curious.
@ LBM – I am sure I will be corrected by others but the bus quantum hierarchy that I understand is fleet —> garage allocation —> route allocation —> peak vehicle requirement (for a route). The PVR is vehicles on the road whereas the allocation includes spares / breakdown cover. When I see the term “squadron” used with buses I tend to think of a mass or group of vehicles of a given type entering service in a location or on a route. Clearly London sees quite a lot of this given type conversions etc although private bus cos now tend to put their shiniest new buses on the best performing routes or ones they want to improve. Allocations are now strongly linked to route rather than general upgrades as might have happened in years gone by.
I could have used “fleet” but I was trying to make a point about a large number of new vehicles being put into service in a short timescale. I have seen this used for new trains.
For example:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmtran/201/3012208.htm
“When you combine the new fleets of Connex South Eastern and South West Trains to the Southern region the quantum of trains is such that the current power supply, which is 11 KV, is not adequate to cope with the squadron introduction of new trains.”
I suspect it was probably Cecil J. Allen who coined the use of “squadron” in relation to trains, typically in the phrase “(entering into) squadron service”, still used today in the railway press. I must admit I haven’t seen it used about buses before.
See also:
http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=110316
Here is a bus related use in relation to the ‘Borismaster’:
http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1499360&postcount=70
I first came across the term “squadron” in the railway sense in relation to the APT, to distinguish from the APT-E (evaluation or experimental – one built) and APT-P (prototype: three built). “Squadron service” essentially meant that they would be in normal operational service. (Unbdoutedly a term borrowed from the RAF, where an experimental type would eventually be developed to a type which could be used in an operational squadron)
Although the APT-P was a PR disaster, pressed into passenger service before it was ready, squadron service of a simplified non-articulated version did eventually happen. The power car was moved to one end and although the carriages were designed to be retro-fitted for tilt, that has not so far come to pass. The name was also changed for the squadron version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCity_225#/media/File:Train_91124_(3240970057).jpg
It seems Boris is to be challenged on the extreme high tempertures experienced on his Borismasters in the heatwave conditions we are having see link –
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-07-02/double-decker-buses-hotter-than-the-sahara-during-londons-heatwave/
The response given to ITV London was totally pathetic and as Malcolm inferred in an earlier post it seems whatever problem arises with Borismaster buses be it failing brakes or excess summer heat ” The Emperor ( Boris) is fully clothed !”
As for Trolleybuses well they were seen as yesterday’s transport restricted to overhead wires which had never been updated or automated meaning clippies had to jump off and on buses to set frogs manually many times a day . While they made use of tram infrastructure which was around 60 years old and thus needed replacing and so the economics of diesel buses at a time of cheap oil meant Trolleys had no future !
Who knows , the development of battery powered buses might lead to installing modern overhead as hybrid fully electric buses able to cover longer routes are introduced ..
Melvyn
All true,although modern battery technology coupled with a different design of current collection could avoid some of the intrinsic problems of the old system.
A modern trolleybus could be fitted with a retractable pantograph which could be raised “under the wires” or charging purposes,and lowered for “off the wires” or overtaking (under battery power).There would also be none of the issues with route-selection and de-wiring that bedevilled the old system.
I believe such a system has been adopted by Mercedes/Siemens for their experimental system for goods lorries.
http://cdn2.spiegel.de/images/image-351359-galleryV9-mhct.jpg
Apologies if this has been raised before….this is a very long thread….
@slugabed
Pneumatic tyres mean that trolleybuses needed +ve and -ve wires, where railed vehicles can use the rails as an earth return. The trolley system ensured the contacts stayed on the respective wires. I don’t know how the siemens system keeps the two pantographs on the respective wires. There must be some very clever tracking going on,.
http://www.mobility.siemens.com/mobility/global/en/interurban-mobility/road-solutions/electric-powered-hgv-traffic-ehighway/the-ehighway-concept/pages/the-ehighway-concept.aspx
@straphan. The European cities that still have trolleybus systems are few and far between. It is very unlikely that any of those have London’s specific problems, although they would be subject to the same air quality standards as London. They have the luxury to be able to contemplate what the industry might come up with in terms of wire-less electric transport.
London does not have that luxury. The city’s air quality problem is so serious that TfL should be demonstrating that it is vigorously looking at every potential technology. What seems to be happening is a bit of this and a bit of that, in the full knowledge that the only ‘new’ technologies for all-electric buses have severe disadvantages in terms of range, weight and passenger capacity. To totally ignore the only proven all-electric bus technology (and proven in a big way here in London as well as other places), is perverse and unfair on Londoners. As it is, there is an atmosphere of hoping that ‘something will turn up’.
Perhaps it’s another fall-out from the Mayor’s gesture politics in retiring early all those bendy buses. Modern trolleybus systems tend to be single-deck and the high capacity versions are articulated. Is potential loss of face a problem here?
It would be daft to suddenly go for wholesale wire erection, but it’s equally stupid not to have a trial route. Is someone afraid that such a trial would immediately demonstrate how good it could be? Although no-one builds double-deck trolleybuses, there are plenty of buses around with wheels driven by electric motors. Conversion on a trial basis would not seem to be a great challenge.
fandroid
The city’s air quality problem is so serious
Sorry, I simpy do not believe this.
At all.
Even compared to 20-25 years back, when almost all diesel vehicles spewed out clouds of choking blue-black smoke, things have visibly improved.
It is still noticeable, mostly to the nose, especially at clogged & busy intersections, on still days, that the air quality is not what it might be.
But – some of us remember real pollution.
I do not believe the scare figures about the number being killed in London each year by exhaust emissions – I would love to see the full basis for such calculations.
I suspect, that like the “Obesity” statistics, absed on a Body-Mass-Index, that was itself based on a study done in the USA in the dustbowl era, the entire underpinning of the operation is very dodgy, to say the least.
Is someone afraid that such a trial would immediately demonstrate how good it could be?
YES
The perceived problems with fixed-infrastructure transport is its lack of adaptability to change – either short term for repair and maintenance or longer term as demand patterns change. However, this does not seem to deter the advocates of heavy rail, despite many examples of recent construction that have since become redundant – Charing Cross Jubilee, Island Gardens terminus, Waterloo International, North Pole depot, Stewrats Lane flyover, Fawkham spur etc.
As far as trolleybuses are concerned, this problem is readily resolvable with developments in battery technology – why sit on a pad to charge up when you can do it as you go along?
And as a recent digression-from-a-digression on another topic has highlighted (to be deleted as way off the point!) , some London bus routes have existed in more or less the same form for a hundred years or more. Indeed, although London only had trolleybuses for 31 years (less eight days), some of the successor diesel routes still faithfully follow exactly the same routes today – and indeed the tramlines that preceded them!
@Fandroid – I wouldn’t disagree with your general conclusion about the Godot approach to policy in this country but there is a cultural point behind it,perhaps – some European countries have a dense cluster of trolleybus systems – Switzerland, Austria, and everywhere east (albeit for a different reason), but some seemingly comparable jurisdictions eg Germany. One possible explanation is that these trolleyphile cities are in states where the local Stadtwerke has not been forced to divest itself of non-core activities and the synergies between power generation and local transport are easier to see and implement.
@timbeau – indeed some bus routes are understood to be 150 years old and more, but – back on topic – one of the triggers for trolleybus abandonment in this country was the widespread introduction of one-way traffic management schemes where the cost of moving the infrastructure was thought to be poor vfm for systems that needed major renewal investment anyway. (The fewpublished accounts of municipal trolleybus operation that I have been able to turn up suggest that purely in terms of operating expenditure, trolleybuses were cheaper than diesel, as well as, of course, providing a welcome daytime load for municipally-owned power stations….)
One thing that has puzzled me greatly about recent UK trolleybus projects has been their immense capital cost – Leeds was coming up with figures in excess of £800m at one time. For that money, it would have been cheaper to buy a modern tramway of the same size (and that would include moving the utilities, too).
Fandroid / Melvyn – the issue of high temperatures on the NB4L has already been dealt with in a recent Mayor’s Answer to a question from Darren Johnson.
http://questions.london.gov.uk/QuestionSearch/searchclient/questions/question_282404
In essence the answer is “everything is OK” and “NB4Ls are no worse than other buses”. Whether that is believed or not is down to individuals. There have been loads of complaining tweets over the last week or so and a growing number of people are avoiding the buses where they can because they make people ill. Nice to know I’m not alone. Note the remark in the above answer about further small scale initiatives being trialled on route 73. Route 73 is also the first recipient of the “mark 2” NB4Ls which are supposed to have improved heat insulation / better air cooling. I haven’t seen one or been on one of these vehicles. I was forced to use a NB4L on the N73 a fortnight ago at about 0400 and it was warm with steamed up windows even at that time of day.
My view is that we are certainly seeing a policy of avoiding Mayoral embarrassment by defending the NB4L to the hilt even when there is a level of vocal complaint on social media and issues being raised by politicians. The same applies to the denial of the merits of bendy buses in shifting large numbers of people and having more provision for buggies and wheelchairs given two bays on those buses. This is one of the downsides of political control – TfL has to defend the policies of the incumbent Mayor even if they are unpopular or not especially rational. I am sure there will be more questions from Assembly Members and the same answers will be trotted out. Nothing changes until at least May 2016 *unless* anyone suffers a serious health problem that can be incontrovertibly linked to travelling on the NB4L. Even then I can’t see 600+ buses being taken off the roads.
I think there are two issues with electric buses / trolleybuses. TfL have clearly decided they’re happy to help “push” technological development of all electric buses. They’ve done this before with low floor bus development, then having a fully accessible fleet and then hybrid bus development. It has the influence and buying power to do this plus a political context of aiding the resolution of air quality problems. The downside is that commitment to specific vehicle designs can involve “locking in” a level of emissions performance that will quickly be overtaken by technological improvements. This has already happened with new euro6 buses being better than the euro5 spec NB4Ls. TfL’s locked in to a 14 year lifespan with the NB4Ls unless it is prepared to write off a very substantial investment.
On the trolleybus issue I think it’s as simple as not wanting to make the huge investment in infrastructure for the wires, power supply and garage changes. That’s a big sum of money and there is the whole life cost of maintenance, replacement and upgrade. I also think there is a second issue of risk around securing powers and design / implementation. We have a zero or close to zero level of knowledge of modern trolleybuses which means time and money being needed to get round those problems. I also suspect that boroughs like Westminster, the City of London and Kensington and Chelsea would object to any wiring within their boundaries. If they don’t want cycle lanes then imagine the furore over wiring. The only thing that will get round this is a new Mayor requiring TfL to introduce trolleybuses but remember we’ve been here before and wires were argued away on the schemes for East London Transit and Waterfront Transit in South East London.
@WW “I also suspect that boroughs like Westminster, the City of London and Kensington and Chelsea would object to any wiring within their boundaries.”
plus ca change – they never saw trolleybuses last time round (except for very short encroachments a few yards into the City), and it was pressure to protect the streetscape in these areas that was a big driver behind using conduit rather than overhead wires for LCC trams.
@Graham H
“the cost of moving the infrastructure was thought to be poor vfm for systems that needed major renewal investment anyway.”
You could have argued that, on the contrary, if it needed renewal anyway, that was the ideal time to reconfigure it. One of the reasons trolleybuses came along in the first place – the tram tracks, dating back to the horse age, were knackered, but the electrics (which were newer) had plenty of life still in them
“Route 73 is also the first recipient of the “mark 2″ NB4Ls which are supposed to have improved heat insulation / better air cooling. I haven’t seen one or been on one of these vehicles. ”
(that route again……)
There is a significant change to the NB4L design. Here it is.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/105365436@N07/19179321411
and the old two-piece design for comparison
https://www.flickr.com/photos/13407304@N05/19041393528
The USP of the Borismaster was supposed to be the open platform, hop-on, hop off. The new arrangement seems to have designed out even the possibility of doing this.
@Graham H
“One possible explanation is that these trolleyphile cities are in states where the local Stadtwerke has not been forced to divest itself of non-core activities and the synergies between power generation and local transport are easier to see and implement.”
That was not the case in London though. Despite nationalisation of the power industry in the 1940s, LT continued to generate its own electrictity at the former MDR power station at Lots Road until 2002, and retains the former LCC tramways generators at Greenwich (for standby purposes for the Underground ) even now.
It was both private and municipal enterprise which built the tram network, and all but the initial trolleybus network was built up by London Transport. But, it was also London Transport which shut the whole lot down.
Greg Tingey 09:25
Whether you choose to believe that the air quality today is as bad as it used to be is up to you. Not for nothing is it called the invisible killer. There is no point in just recalling the belching fumes or smog of yesteryear to establish facts. What you need to do is draw comparisons of expected death (assuming no vehicle or other pollution to be investigated) and actual death of certain conditions, respiratory conditions in particular. As I understand it, consistently worldwide, there is a strong correlation between air quality and premature respiratory deaths and they run into the thousands every year. There is also a greater understanding of what the tiny particles involved do to the lungs.
One could draw many comparisions. Which would you rather live next to: a coking plant that belched out masses of black soot or an asbestos factory that merely covered the streets in a light white gauze that children picked up and played with?
Fandroid says “The European cities that still have trolleybus systems are few and far between“. Far-between maybe, but from a quick count in this article I make it 228 cities . This does include Russia and Ukraine (not sure if it’s the whole of Russia), but even if you exclude these far-away countries of whose people we may know nothing, it’s still 103. Even if you exclude cities which were east of the iron curtain (not really recommended these days) , it is still a fairly respectable 42.
PoP
Your last point is only too apt.
I was questioning the underlying supposedly statistical basis upon which these figures appear to subsist.
I have no quarrel with a correlation between air quality & number of deaths – indeed the (Usually publicly under-stated) number of deaths in the two great smogs of 1952 & 1955 were the driver for the Clean Air acts.
What I am questioning is the supposed correlation between the current low-by-historical standards pollution level & the current number of deaths …..
Please note, I am not advocating that we should “do nothing”, merely asking for real justification for these apparently emergency measures, & that any real improvements in emissions be introduced gradually, since, in the nature of things, most of the older, more polluting vehicles will naturally waste away, anyhow.
Especially if the new, less-polluting vehicles can be made either cheaper or longer-lasting or both, of course
The Supreme Court ruled recently that London and several other UK cities have levels of Nitrogen Dioxide which is above the EU limits, and that the government must do something about that. (See e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32512152). So it’s not necessarily a case of “worse than it used to be”, but definitely “worse than it should be”.
@Greg
One thing you seem to be missing (unless I have misunderstood you) is that the pollution now, being addressed by the current restrictions and regulations on emissions from diesel engines, is of a different kind from the historical pollution addressed by the Clean Air acts. Visible (and smellable) smog and soot is indeed low-by-historical-standards, but that has no connection with the current restrictions.
As for introducing things gradually, well yes, but that is, arguably, already happening. This silent killer has been understood for at least 20 years, but very little was done, at first. (Witness the once-lower rate of taxation on diesel fuel as against petrol, now rectified, but which influenced many car buyers towards going for diesel). Of course a balance has to be struck between acting too fast, and foot-dragging, and that balance is ultimately left to the politicians, as it has to be.
But there is one form of pressure on politicians which seems to work to some extent. That is competition between cities. Even allowing for it being the Evening Standard, this article (with some scientific backing) accuses Oxford Street of being the worst place in the world for toxic pollutants.
Malcolm
While seeing your point,I think that the hyperbolic claims made for Oxford Street fuel the scepticism which Greg demonstrates and to which I,to some extent share and,mirabile dictu,we boh share with our Mayor.
Oxford Street clearly isn’t the most polluted place in the world and although much hangs on the definition of “place”,(there are some places which are immediately lethal to all human life) and to say so makes a mockery of all the efforts to provide workable solutions to real problems of quality,and a gradual reduction of what I consider,based on my own 50 years’ experience of living in London,to be historically low levels of air pollution.
Tottenham Marshes,for instance,with which I am very familiar,hosts species of Lichen (a proven indicator of air quality) which 40 years ago I had only seen on holiday in the Channel Islands and Cornwall.
This is shouldn’t be taken to say further improvements can’t be made still,though…
It seems to me that one problem with reinstating trolley-wire infrastructure across London is that it’s a low-voltage DC power system and thus suffers from the same drawbacks as 3rd-rail and 4th-rail systems found on the railways: you need a lot of substations to support it.
The old network went out of service around 60 years ago and it’s unlikely any of what remains of its support infrastructure—mainly the HV connections to substations, and the substations themselves—is viable today. Such a network would therefore need to be built from scratch. And that’s expensive. It’s not just the installation of the trolley-wires themselves, but getting them all connected to the national grid.
When the original tram network was built, there was no national grid, so this is already a big change. National Grid Plc. is also a private corporation, so they’re unlikely to connect it all up at cost, which will inevitably add to the price tag. They’ll have to dig up roads to lay the new HV cables. The fewer of these you need, the better, which is why talk of on-route current-collection systems appears to be mainly in favour of short stretches along common route sections. (E.g. along High Streets and the like.)
Another issue is operations and maintenance expenditure (“OpEx”). At the moment, most of that is offloaded onto the bus operators: TfL only has to maintain the roads, which they’d have to do regardless, so their accountants pretend the wear and tear is all down to LGVs and white vans. Bus lanes and the like can also be maintained by the same teams that paint all the other lines and symbols onto the roads—i.e. you don’t need specialist teams for that. But trolley-wire infrastructure would require specialists, which means additional ongoing costs for TfL.
All of which may explain why TfL are more interested in buses that can carry their own energy supply, rather than feeding off a wire or induction system. It may make the buses themselves more expensive, but it’s the bus operators who would pay for them and their maintenance, not TfL.
(I suspect this is also why TfL has also been less than enthusiastic about new tram projects, despite the success of Croydon’s Tramlink. You can’t offload the track and trolley wire costs onto the operators, unless you charge them track access fees, which would mean TfL creating a mini-Network Rail entity of their own…)
As is so often the case, it boils down (mainly) to politics.
@Slugabed
I think I now see where I am differing from you and Greg, thank you for making it clearer.
You both see one thing called “air quality”, and are stressing how good it is, by certain measures. And of course you are right. The particular pollutants which previously killed the lichen you refer to, or previously killed many Londoners through smog, are not there.
And I do accept that a one-dimensional measure like “air quality” is useful for many purposes. But it does not tell the whole story. We can have better quality air than we had 40 years ago, and yet still suffer from a particular subset of pollutants (NO2 and some specific particulates) in particular areas of the city, to an extent that is dangerous to human life.
Pedantic provided the most telling illustration of this. Another would be a person advised by a doctor to give up smoking, who responds by saying how much better he has been since he gave up drinking, ate more vegetables, got more exercise, a more fulfilling career, and a dog. All very true, but all irrelevant to the smoking.
Indeed…and I am,in no sense,saying “that’s it,the air is clean!” there is still a lot to be done…the doctor in your instance would say “Well done,now all we have to do is work on the smoking” rather than saying “You have the most cancerous lungs on earth” which is not only an absurd statement but also demonstrably untrue.
@Anomnibus
You are probably right about the factors of cost allocation and so on, the specialists, and “who pays for what”.
I am less convinced by your arguments about provision of High Voltage supplies and substations. Yes, of course that would all cost money. But a similar amount of money would be required by widespread adoption of battery buses. They would all need charging, and a similar amount of power would have to be delivered to the garages or charging stations. In fact slightly more energy in total, due to battery losses (assuming these are greater than the substation losses). (Maybe a somewhat lower peak demand, if they can all be charged overnight).
Although third-rail trains also require expensive power delivery infrastructure, no-one as far as I am aware is suggesting replacing them by battery trains.
Malcolm – It is true that no one is suggesting replacing 3rd rail with battery trains dud to the amount of grid connections, but neither is anyone electifying the three remaining diesel islands, partly due to the increased cost of sub stations.
It looks like the new version of NB4L kills off the justification of being able to hop on and off these buses as with the narrower entrance available such an act will be almost impossible. And it aids these buses being even hotter !
These buses are pure dogma which can be seen in TFL adverts which prise their three entrances which when it came to Artics were condemned for allowing fare dodgers.
The development of batteries which have far more power than those Trolleybuses had mean that there is no need to fully wire routes but to look at where wires could be used to charge batteries say at northern end of route 149 between Edmonton and Dalston Junction with battery power onwards to London Bridge thus not needing to wire more sensitive central central section.
However when one compares the round traction poles with the ugly metal supports used on Tramlink then this aspect needs to be more like the old . While more use of supporting wires from buildings with Rosettes helps to reduce poles .
The real problems are not just the overhead but the way bus routes are tendered on short 5-7 year awards with routes no longer always having garages en route as London Transport Trolleybus Depots were in most cases.
@Purley Dweller/Malcolm
“Malcolm – It is true that no one is suggesting replacing 3rd rail with battery trains, but they are talking about conversion to ac ohle – initially Basingtsoke to Southampton, as part of the “electric spine”.
@Malcolm:
My main point was that TfL is unlikely to adopt any system that places the OpEx burden directly on them, hence their preference for alternative systems that put the financial burden (and risk) on the operators. The short concessions means operators aren’t going to be funding massive trolleybus infrastructure out of their own pockets. You have to change the rules of the game for that to happen.
That said, running HV cables to bus garages and other strategic locations for charging duties is still going to be substantially cheaper than running HV cables to brand new substations right across central London, which would be required for conventional trolley-wire infrastructure. Just finding suitable sites for those substations would be very difficult—not to mention the staggering cost of building anything in that part of London.
If you’re only running in electric-only mode for relatively short stretches, there is no need for a continuous power supply along the entire route, so the rise of the hybrid bus is logical given the rules and interfaces the various entities involved are stuck with.
Melvyn,
I am not saying which is right or wrong but I do notice that inconsistencies abound when it comes to the air-conditioning issue be it on buses or trains.
For years I have been reading the claim that one of the reasons the New Routemaster was so hot was because the open doors made the air-conditioning less ineffective. Now I am interpreting your comment to mean that because one of the doors will be not only be normally shut but also less wide it will help make the buses even hotter.
What range would a plug in hybrid bus have before the engine needed to run. Buses sit on the stand for quite a while on routes that serve central London so could they be plugged in at one end of the route, and would that give them enough charge to get out and back say 20 miles worth and then the engine could cover when there was a lot of traffic. Euro 6 keeps the soot down when the engine is running.
A couple of comments on previous posts.
@ Anomnibus – TfL only look after a minority of roads in London and several stretches of the A13 and A406, for example, have no bus services at all. Boroughs have the lion’s share of road maintenance responsibilities and their funding is even more imperiled that TfL’s. They are also sacking highway engineers to save money so expertise and knowledge is being lost. That is another significant impediment to introducing new technology on or near the highway network. That situation will worsen for possibly the next decade and beyond. It will also imperil cycling and bus priority improvements too. More ludicrous short term, short sighted politics.
@ Melvyn – can we please stop the hysteria over the NB4L please? It is no shock to anyone who takes more than a passing interest in TfL matters that the “mark 2” NB4L is not going to have an open platform or a customer assistant. TfL said this in their policy paper. It has been evident *for months and months* that no more twin crewed route conversions will happen. Depending on the outcome of the May 2016 election and the funding situation I’d expect customer assistants to be removed from NB4L routes in pretty short order. Some people won’t like it but tough. The routes were all OPO before the NB4L turned up so what’s the issue? The temperature situation is different – clearly a proportion of people are finding the NB4Ls far too hot in warm weather. Some of them are voicing their concerns on Twitter and elsewhere. However nothing will happen because to do anything substantive would mean conceding they don’t work and we can’t have that for reasons already discussed. That’s politics for you.
I would also point out that the NB4L sets the precedent for what could be done with Trolleybuses. TfL would have to buy the vehicles and lease them to the operators. No different to what’s being done now. Ditto the infrastructure. To suggest TfL would be so daft as to impose the cost and risk of unique vehicles and infrastructure on operators would then charge TfL an absolute fortune for the privilege is to ignore TfL’s stance of costs and risks. It knows where best to place such things and there is loads of evidence to support that. Please don’t create ludicrous scenarios just for effect when the evidence suggests the opposite would be true. The same applies for electric buses. I understand many of the initial vehicles are owned by TfL and leased to the operators. The same thing happened with the early low floor buses on routes 101, 222 and 144 and also the trial hybrid buses. All of this allowed in service operational experience to be gained with minimal risk to the operators and no risk premium being passed to TfL. TfL took the risk and also obtained european funding where this was possible. That looks like sensible stewardship.
@ Purley Dweller – I think the current level of in service operation for “plug in” buses is about 3-4 hours before some level of recharge is needed. You’ll see this if you look at the vehicles’ history on London Vehicle Finder and they do chunks of work and then recharge at the garage and came back in to service later. When one is recharging then another takes its slot on the route. In effect you have twice as many buses to cover a duty. The BYD buses on the 507 and 521 seem to do a bit better whereas the Optare Metrocity electrics seem to be doing better than in their early days. I’ve just looked at some vehicle and route history and they seem to be out for longer hours than I recall so being honest I’ve just slightly contradicted myself but hey that’s life! I confess I have yet to travel on any of the electric buses – they’re a long drag away from WW Towers.
On the range / time question. The Tesla Model S (a large and startlingly rapid car – stealing customers from Mercedes/Jaguar) can add about 170 miles to range in a 30 minute charge – if it’s charged at a specific Tesla charging station.
I appreciate that this car is nowhere near as heavy as a bus, but it shows how charging technology has come on.
On the NB4L and heat. The tfl statement that its no worse than other buses is about as believable as the soviet “grain harvest spectacular” claims. I was on a route 135 (new hybrid, not NB4L) and that bus has cooling that actually works.
@WW
“The BYD buses on the 507 and 521 seem to do a bit better ”
Possibly because the service levels (and thus PVR) on those two routes is extremely “peaky” and it is therefore easy to charge them up between the peaks. I never see them in the off peak. Might not be so easy to do this if the route is entirely operated by battery buses.
“The routes were all OPO before the NB4L turned up so what’s the issue? ”
The issue is that the hop-on hop-off facility was the USP of the design – one of the few things actually specified in the brief. Without it, these buses are merely rather heavier, longer, dirtier (as not Euro-6 compliant) and more expensive, than off-the-shelf designs.
@ WW I agree with Timbeau as to the main reason advocated for the New Routemasters in the 2008 Mayoral Election was bringing back hop on and off facility ( despite deaths and injuries especially sprained ankles associated with open platform buses !) . In fact I watched the latest Mayoral Questions and Boris was arguing with two of his party members over which one came up with the idea which he pinched all thinking these buses are the ultimate in perfection !
As for argument over air conditioning well I found the old buses with opening windows and cold air blowers far more comfortable and far better looking with proper size front windows .
On the subject of BYD buses on routes 507 and 521 are electric Artic buses available to help reduce the number of buses required if charging time means more buses are needed on electric routes ?
@ Timbeau – fair comment about the BYDs but I have seen them out and about off peak from looking at LVF. Clearly they get a rest at weekends as Waterloo garage is closed and the 507 runs out of Mandela Way.
I know some people get very “hot under the collar” about the alleged hop on / hop off facility on the NB4L but it’s never been a plus point for me. From seeing how the “customer assistants” were instructed to act as guards for the rear door and yelling at people who had the audacity to descend to the platform when the bus was moving but approaching a stop I quickly realised it was a load of nonsense. Nothing like coming down the stairs on a RM and being able to hang on with the breeze in your face as the bus pulled in to a stop. It’s simply not the same thing at all so why bother with the pretence?
The Mayor spouted his usual load of flowery prosed nonsense about the “open platform and personal freedom” when the thing was launched which was enough for me to consign it to the dustbin. I refuse to call the NB4L the N** R********** because it simply isn’t such a thing and never was. A senior TfL person called the NB4L a double deck bendy bus with the trailer being the top deck which is marginally nearer the operational reality but without the bendy bus’s obvious benefits like high carrying capacity. It’s simply another entry in the annals of London Bus History and others will no doubt give it its “place” in said history. One day professional bus men will be allowed to buy appropriate vehicles for London without needless political interference. The waste from bad vehicle purchases and political interference in vehicle policy over many many decades must mount into the hundreds of millions of pounds.
@Ww
“the alleged hop on / hop off facility on the NB4L but it’s never been a plus point for me.”
Whether open platforms are a good thing or not (and I think they are, having been imprisoned in buses stuck in traffic between stops far too often, and missing trains/appointments/connecting buses in consequence) BoJo was an enthusiast, and the design brief for the NBfL required them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7489380.stm
“Key features designers must consider include an open platform to allow passengers to get on and off quickly and easily”
This article has attracted 474 comments. Obviously the subject is still a live one, and still of interest. But it is clear, looking back, that some more recent comments are restating things that were already said, 6, 9 or 12 months earlier. There are also restatements of points made by Pedantic in his original article. (I find that I am as guilty as several others are of inadvertent repetition).
Comments can and will continue. But it would be strongly preferred if everyone would try to ensure that they are saying something which is new. (And, as always, interesting, well-argued, supported by facts, and on-topic).
Just jogging back to the electric bus technology for a moment – and hopefully (Malcolm!) making a couple of new points – if we are looking at a fleetwide use of recharging technology, then the power demand will be comparable pari passu with the demands of the former trolleybus fleet and require similar amounts of supporting distribution, albeit to a smaller number of points. (Of course, modern technology and materials will have reduced transmission losses,and a complete network of wires andpolesis not needed, but the total power draw and its associated infrastructure will still be substantialand far beyond the scope of the present handful of experimental charging points).
The second point is that even 30 minutes to recharge a battery (as with the cited example of a Tesla car) every 170 miles(presumably a different lower figure for a much heavier bus which is starting away frequently, even if it has bigger – but heavier – batteries), implies an additional number of buses off the road being recharged. An additional cost therefore.
The third point of the two I had in mind(with apologies to the Spanish Inquisition) was simply to remark that the key to all this taking off is presumably a high degree of standardisation, for example, by permitting battery swaps as easily filling up with petrol. I see little sign of that being taken seriously just now.
@Graham H
“power demand will be comparable pari passu with the demands of the former trolleybus fleet ”
With three differences:
1. modern buses are heavier than they were fifty years ago – even before you take the extra weight of the batteries into account compared with a trolleybus
2. overall energy take will be greater because of conversion losses in the batteries.
3. the demand profile will be very different – TBs highest power draw would be in the peaks, which is exactly when no battery bus will be sitting on its charger
@ Graham H – another aspect of the switch to electric buses is the cost of power. Currently the bus companies in London are nearly all part of big groups who can hedge their fuel costs. Clearly there’s a risk either way given fuel price volatlility in recent years but bus cos don’t pay either close to the price the public pay. I am left wondering what flexibility there will be for bus companies to become bulk buyers of electricity so they can benefit from the advance purchase / spot market for power. It’ll also be interesting to see what happens to tender prices and whether some companies gain or lose depending on the scale of electricity buying power.
I also wonder quite what TfL is funding directly up front (e.g. charging points in garages for trial vehicles?) [1] and what will be funded indirectly via the contract costs. Unfortunately TfL have not yet updated the tender award info for route 312’s award which is with an all electric fleet of single deckers.
[1] that’s me speculating btw – I have no clue whether TfL have funded power infrastructure for the trials of all electric buses.
In my earlier message I forgot to also stipulate that comments should ideally be written in the English language. Pari passu means “in equal steps”, and I think in this case Graham means something like “in proportion to the sizes of the respective fleets”. In timbeau’s message I presume “TBs” means “trolleybuses’ “.
(timbeau also forgot to throw in the dreaded air-conditioning).
It would seem that Geminis with A/C = good. NBfLs with A/C = bad. but then what is it that makes the difference?
Also, the Tesla is an extremely impressive car, but isn’t its boot entirely filled with laptop batteries?
@timbeau – entirely agree. Even without being able to put numbers around it, it’s difficult to see battery buses as being the answer to lowering emissions – lower at street level-probably – lower in total – unlikely. But then – that’s what comes of managing to (thoughtlessly chosen) targets…..
BTW, as a small aside on your point about the timing of demand – well into the post war period, and quite possibly even afterwards, electric public transport provided a key daytime load on the generation system – a role which it didn’t lose until industry switched away from belt-driven steam powered plant on a large scale, an event probaly marked in our area with the modern factories along the Great West Road and at Park Royal.
@Malcolm -you are probably right to chide;it’s just that sometimes – asindeed your very own translation shows – Latin is the soul of brevity, perhaps even the mot just.
Stationless. We’re in danger of being edited out for veering away from buses. But no, au contraire (to further inflame Malcolm…), the Tesla ModelS has massive luggage space with two boots. A normal one and another where a conventional engine would be. The batteries sit in a thin tray under the floor plan.
Malcolm. Understand the point about sticking to English. But I’d say ‘Pari passu’ is now adopted, it’s widely used in financial markets. Mind you, Apple agree with you. I’d a huge fight with “predictive suggests” before I could type that…
@ Stationless – on the basis that A/C in your post means air conditioning then I need to say that no London double deck bus on TfL service has air conditioning in the passenger saloon. Younger vehicles have an air cooling system which may be a unit over the stairwell and ducting on a Wright’s Gemini body or a unit at the rear on an Alexander Dennis bus – you can see the fans under the rear upper deck window. Conventional buses also have a variable number of opening windows on upper and lower decks. In short there is the prospect of some air circulation with opening windows although the air cooling works best on the upper deck when it isn’t fighting with air coming through the windows. To be fair the performance of normal air cooling systems is variable – I assume because the level of care and attention by operators varies.
On the NB4L the key difference seems to be the concentration of heat generation at the rear of the vehicle which is also where the vents are for the air cooling system. There are also no opening windows anywhere on a NB4L. It’s also worth saying that there are large expanses of glass near the staircases on the NB4L which can cause the steps and step edges to be very hot. To be honest I’ve not encountered a NB4L where cool air has come out of the air ducting although I hardly ever use them so the usual warnings about tiny sample sizes apply. Some people on other forums have used NB4Ls which have had cool air coming out of the ducting. If you believe comment on social media then a lot of NB4Ls are very warm / hot during warm weather. Also many people believe the buses have air conditioning that simply isn’t working. On one level that’s correct because the buses don’t have air con at all!!
I understand that many drivers cabs on both single and double deck London buses do have air conditioning. I believe that Mercedes Citaro single decks that run on a small number of London routes (203, 227, X26, 507 and 521) are also air conditioned the the passenger saloon but that’s it. All the other single decks have opening windows to create some air cooling effect / circulation. They don’t have ducted air cooling systems. Happy to be corrected if I’ve missed something.
@Stationless
I’d have thought “mutatis mutandis” was the appropriate term, but if Latin is verboten we’ll have to stop discussing omnibuses altogether.
As for the Tesla (I wonder how many owners actually know who Nikola Tesla was?) , the Roadster is rather short on luggage space, but in the big limousine (Tesla S) the Observer’s car reviewer reported only yesterday:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/05/tesla-s-car-review-martin-love
“…. peer into the empty [bonnet] cavity and see only decent storage. You pop the lid on the boot… Nope, just more storage. [the engine] is the size of a handbag and is hidden behind the back seat. A giant battery pack powers this handbag and it takes up the entire floor of the car.”
Ah, but there are handbags and handbags. Are we talking about the minuscule clutch bag or purse that a lady might take to the opera, holding little more than a credit card and a mobile phone? Or the Lady Bracknell-type “HANDBAG?!” in which the infant Ernest Worthing (as he would subsequently be named) was discovered in the left luggage office at Victoria Station (the Brighton line)? (what we would probably call a Gladstone bag)
@Graham H
Did you meant to say “pro rata”.
Battery buses with air conditioning? How will that affect power consumption and therefore range, recharging times and the size and weight of the battery pack? Surely with prohibitive effect.
@Nameless – I very much agree that aircon and other bells and whistles (but mainly aircon) are not only a big addition to weight but require a substantial power draw to operate them. On aircon railway rolling stock, the additional power requirement has exceeded 20% (I have heard of cases of up to 40% but not from wholly reliable sources).
Pro rata would be banned, too. I am now initiating a project to produce posts only in basic English with a vocabulary of no more than 800 words. [Eg ” I will start work to write. I will use no more than 800 different words.”] Only joking…
Graham H,
I suspect that the premise is made that “if the air-con is fully working it is drawing additional current of up to 20%” then it is compared to a base load for having the train in operation. This is rather misleading as to implications. Point to bear in mind:
– For much of the year the air-con will not be on at all. For most of the time it is on it should not be running at maximum output.
– When it is running at maximum output would probably be very hot without it and potentially be dangerous. Personally I am amazed we haven’t had an old person die on a train or pregnant woman or young baby rushed to hospital as a result of severe hyperthermia in a train that is stationary for a long period of time for whatever reason. As the SAS tragedy showed last year, just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it won’t happen – actually there are recorded (by the coroner) deaths of young fit soldiers in Iraq due to hyperthermia.
– You could also look at train heating in winter. So one really needs to look at how much more capacity above a train heated in winter is required to run air-conditioning in summer.
– If air-con takes a trains beyond permitted power output the answer is simple – switch it off! I believe that 12-car trains between Tunbridge Wells and Hastings are not allowed to have the air-conditioning on for this reason. The trains are normally 10-car maximum so this could fit in with your 20% figure. Of course if the train becomes stationary for a period of time and is not drawing power for traction it would seem reasonable to switch the air-conditioning on. If the controls were more sophisticated maybe trains could run air-conditioning when coasting or even regeneratively when braking.
To keep this comment on topic, a lot of the points made could also apply to buses, trolleybuses or trams.
@Nameless – Actually I did mean, for the avoidance of doubt,that if you increased either a trolleybus fleet or a battery fleet by X units, then, assuming they consumed similar amounts of power per unit, you’d require that much more power distribution (so, pari passu); if they consume different amounts of power, for all the reasons discussed – and we don’t have any actual data for that at the moment – then it would be pro rata.
@IslandDweller – yes, predictive text is infuriating; I am waiting to see when Apple and Microsoft launch “predictive thought” – should be a good marketing opportunity there…
“pari passu” or “pro rata”? Ca ne faire rien – it’s verboten.
It’s all Greek to me anyway.
timbeau,
Failure to stick to the correct lingua franca of this site may lead to deletion of comments.
I think this polemic has reached its terminus.
(Victoria, or Mary-le-Bonne?)
@ WW on your point about the provision of air con to drivers cabs I recently learnt through chatting to a driver of a K1 bus that Abellio’s policy is to remove the fuse so rendering the air con unit so much dead weight. The drivers are required to grin and bear it. The reason is apparently to save on additional fuel costs. I can’t see this happening on a train as the RMT would rise up in wrath….
@ Richard B – wonder what TfL would say about that? I bet the tender prices are set on the basis that the air con is on. I also suspect that cab air con is specced by TfL – if it wasn’t then surely Abellio would just order vehicles without the kit? If true then it seems pretty shoddy to me given the stressful nature of bus driving and the need to ensure a safe / healthy working environment for someone charged with the care of up to 90 passengers.
There has been very little mention of supercapacitors. These can be charged very quickly and do not deteriorate like batteries. This means wired sections can be shorter, and regenerative braking can be used on unwired sections. I understand these are used in Seville, where there are no wires through the historic city centre, and wires on the boring dual carriageway reservation in the suburbs. Like batteries, the technology is apparently advancing well.
There has also been little mention of swappable batteries, which seems a sensible idea, and is a much better use of resources than swapping the whole bus, as suggested.
Can I make a modest suggestion as an alternative to having masses of batteries actually on the bus, thereby restricting its passenger capacity? Why not a trial with modified hybrids hauling battery trailers? They might look a bit like bendy-buses on the cheap, but it would avoid a lot of the problems now being faced, and the good old ‘ London icon’ of the red double-decker remains.
Existing all-electric buses spend too long charging up. That means all those seats are doing absolutely nothing while this happens. As I have already stated, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to modify an existing hybrid, so current basic designs can be used. It only needs for the trailers to be designed for easy decoupling and plugging in, and hey presto ( language?) we have a versatile solution to a serious problem.
Going back to the good old days, when the entire power unit was changed when it needed recharging.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Star_Omnibus_Company_horse_bus,_2010_Cobham_bus_rally.jpg
Re Anonyminibus 6 July 2015 at 15:22
Seville is supercapacitor and battery with charging for 20 seconds at every stop.
The main purpose of supercapacitors is to make regenerative braking more efficient as the batteries can’t be charged as fast as the energy is supplied during regenerative braking so they provide a short term buffer allowing the batteries to be charged over a longer period of time.
http://www.caf.es/en/ecocaf/nuevas-soluciones/tranvia-acr.php
Battery + supercapacitor has a range of 1400m, supercapacitor only just 100m.
As previous discussed on LR supercapacitors are good for (dis)charging fast but have a low energy density (Wh/kg) compared to batteries so take up a large volume to provide the same range.
@timbeau. I admit that I had thought of comparing the idea of massive on board batteries with that of carrying a spare horse on the original omnibuses!
Changing horses rather than making refuelling stops continued well into the iron horse era of course. Although, like trolleybuses, they could also take on supplies on the fly!
ngh says ” but have a low energy density (Wh/kg) compared to batteries so take up a large volume to provide the same range” (my emphasis)
Sorry to be picky, but this would mean that they require a larger mass to provide the same range. They may also take up a larger volume, of course, if they have a low volumetric energy density (Wh/m^3) compared to batteries.
Re malcolm,
Oops but the difference between the 2 metrics is far less than a rounding error in reality. The difference between battery and supercapacitor is several orders of magnitude in comparison .
Richard B
The obvious answer to that is to get your own “spare” fuse & carry it around with you ….
fandroid
NOT a new idea
http://www.countrybus.org/ST/ST.html
& then {CTRL+F} for: “STs at War” ..
Brings up a drawing of an ST-type, towing a “Producer-gas” trailer.
Quite common, apparently.
timbeau
Indeed – usually coal capacity wasn’t a problem, but water was.
J Ramsbottom’s invention of the water-trough + pick-up scoop for the LNWR, for running the “irish Mail” to Holyhead in a specified time, solved that one.
@Greg. Those STs with their coke-fired trailers are almost exactly the sort of scale I was thinking of. 2-wheel boxes close-coupled to the bus, but with physical and electrical connections that can easily be detached to allow substitution in the garage or even at somewhere like Walthamstow bus station!
Hmm…. add an extra 2 or more metres to bus length – not exactly desirable at box junctions or near pedestrian crossings- and of course they would have to be lit, signalled and braked. The number plate would also have to be swapped when the trailer is replaced. And who would carry out the work if replacement was needed away from the garage or battery trailer park/charging substation.
I still reckon that ohle would be more energy efficient and cheaper in the long run.
And heaven help the driver and nearby vehicles if you have to reverse on road to get round an obstruction. Also lower 40mph speed limit on unrestricted single carriageway roads.
And no doubt a further menace to passing cyclists.
Surely LT-operated BEA buses from Gloucester Road air terminal had such trailers. I don’t recall any fuss at all about those.
Been there, done that?
Here is the 1970s version.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cliveabrown/3619363464/in/photostream/
For the research and development phase, a trailer might be okay, but the production models could take a standardised battery pack unit that just bolts onto the rear of the bus. It would be designed for easy swap-out at the garage to avoid having these buses sitting around depreciating maliciously at passing accountants.
This approach also means that improvements in battery / energy storage technology can be more easily accommodated without having to perform major surgery on the vehicle itself. As this is the most rapidly-evolving component, making it easy to upgrade, as well as replace, would be sensible.
Rear view cameras would get around the “can’t see out of the back window” problem.
Anomnibus says ‘Rear view cameras would get around the “can’t see out of the back window” problem’
This is a straw man. There would be plenty of difficulties with your suggestion, but that is not one of them. Bus drivers have never been able to see anything useful through the back window of a bus, any more than white van drivers have. Some passengers and tourists might have occasionally enjoyed views of St Pauls through the back window of buses which happen to have them, but they are unlikely to be mollified by a screen picture, and when have 21st century bus designers ever cared about passenger views anyway?
I was only suggesting a trial guys! That’s the time to find out if the apparent problems exist, whether a few no-one had thought of might occur, and take the opportunities to make mods. As for a 40mph limit, that sounds really fast for for London!
@Milton Clevedon
“BEA buses from Gloucester Road air terminal had such trailers. I don’t recall any fuss at all about those”
A quick belt down the A4 and M4 is a rather different matter to negotiating some of the more intricate of one-way systems. Both the bendies and the NbFL had have routes adapted to fit – e,g the closure of the 501 (with all buses taking the newer 521), the extension of the 73 to Seven Sisters to avoid the tight turns at Stoke Newington (and a whole new garage to put the longer buses in) and, I understand, some limits on what routes the NBfL can work.
@ Timbeau – I can assure you that bendies on the 73 went round all the twisty bits whether terminating at the Common as part of the service did or running from Seven Sisters to Victoria. Obviously n/b buses to S Sisters had rather fewer turns.
Photo evidence of a bus from Seven Sisters running via the Common to serve the same stop as buses starting from the Common.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/6097833060/
I used to enjoy bagging the front seat and watching the drivers get the bendies round that turn. Even better when done with a little pace but nice and smoothly. Proved to me that the buses were perfectly manoeuvrable.
My mistake – I had assumed that was the reason for the extension to 7S. I recall there was concern about the twisty bit in Islington too.
(Why does the 73 keep coming up?)
Bendies did seem remarkably manoeuvrable – I once saw one performing a 3-point turn in Cheapside (well, seven actually, but still quite an achievement for something almost as long as the width of the street) after its driver had missed a diversion sign.
@timbeau/WW – the artics seemed to cope extremely well with the 507, which includes some very sharp corners in the Horseferry Road – took them with the ease of a tram…
This may, or may not be relevant.
Having just returned form my annual German trip, I found M.A.N. “bendies” on a local route .. going through some very narrow village streets & around sharp bends.
I can’t get Google Street view to operate on that location, more’s the pity.
But, it would seem (again) that the complaints about “bendies” had no real foundation in fact.
[Very minor snip PoP]
@ Greg – anyone who has travelled to mainland Europe and has a reasonably open mind will have seen a range of “seemingly impossible in the UK” transport practices working perfectly well. I’m not the least bit surprised by your observation. LT / TfL has been plagued by irrational [1] vehicle design / vehicle purchase decisions for decades.
[1] some self inflicted, some imposed by politics.
What were the traffic levels like? One issue with bendies for me was that heavy London traffic meant they were often partly or wholly over crossings as they edged forward in heavy traffic at junctions.
@Ed – I don’t think traffic levels actually come into it. What does, however, is something called lane discipline, which e.g. the Germans are very good at (and far better than here), both in layout/planning and subsequent obedience to those lanes by the users. Then add to that, over there, drivers simply do not enter junctions unless their way is clear to exit completely the other side. That of course is also related to obeying traffic lights, which means holding back any temptation to pass an amber light just on the off chance that the exit will clear itself.
Ed & GF
Traffic was low
Actual route was from village of Bevergern (Junction of Dortmund-Ems & Mitelland Kanals) to Rheine, including a loop through the narrow village streets of Rodde, if you want to look it up on the map/ariel view …..
It’s not just a case of heavy traffic or junction discipline so much as specific pinch-points on London roads where traffic lights are particularly close together and the length of bendies was just impractical. (In particular, see discussion in earlier posts about the Gower Street/New Oxford Street junction and on into Oxford Street proper, and approaches to London Bridge bus station from the north.)
@Philip:
There are plenty of other cities with medieval road layouts that manage to cope just fine with articulated buses. I’m not sure what makes London such a special little snowflake. Besides, how did all the cranes that currently dot London’s skyline get there? Were they airlifted into position? Or did they bring them in on… articulated LGVs?
If the problem was poor junction design, the correct solution is to correct that underlying problem and fix the junctions. Removing the buses solves nothing: double-deckers aren’t always an option due to low bridges, and even where they can be used, they are a less efficient use of road space than their articulated cousins. (Also, in a country with an ageing population, mobility is going to become a major sticking point: people who have trouble walking aren’t going to climb steep stairs.)
@ Anomnibus – not quite sure I understand where your evidence for road space efficiency comes from. Double deckers are space efficient – depending on the internal layout, vehicle weight and length then you can get 100 people onto a 10.6m double decker. Bendy buses claimed around 140 people in 18m but I’m not sure that ever really transpired in UK spec bendies with more seats. Perhaps in continental format with rather larger standee areas that might well be achieved? – certainly in Rome I’ve seen immensely packed buses. Do you have some evidence re road space efficiency? – I’d like to read it.
I think there is perhaps a little bit of an unstated TfL policy that keeps single deckers on a fair proportion of suburban routes because of the need to provide a reasonable number of easily reached seats for older passengers. It certainly takes a lot to get TfL to shift to double deckers – usually intolerable crowding conditions and people being left at stops is what is needed to trigger TfL into paying the extra costs of running double deckers instead of single deckers. As you say some routes can’t take double decks anyway for physical or “local political” reasons so they’re lumbered with single deckers even if it means difficult travelling conditions for people. I’ve long wondered that if we’d had a rational approach then there are routes in the suburbs where the extra “on one level” seating capacity of a bendy bus would be an attractive way of adding much needed capacity while still giving old passengers easy access to seats near doors plus much more buggy and shopping trolley space. As we only have a lunatic approach to bus vehicle design in London we are left with a right old mess (in some places) instead.
@WW: I think bendies have the advantage over double-deckers of being able to exchange passengers at stops more efficiently due to their layout. Plus they do offer more accessible seats than double-deckers no matter their configuration.
The Citaros in London had about the same number of seats as I have seen in a typical bendy for the German market. Of course those for routes 507/521 should have had some removed in favour of more standing room.
Anomnibus
It was the determination to “fix the junctions” (rather than,say,adapt the scheme) that led to the abandonment of the Uxbridge Road trams a few years back and,it is said,cost more than one local councillor their seat….it ain’t so simple…
@ Straphan – I’ll just say “noted” as I fear we may be inadvertently heading towards a debate we really don’t need to have again.
@WW:
The stairwell is the reason for their inefficiency. Those 100 passengers had better not have any mobility problems. For those who do, that top deck might as well not be there. With an artic bus, all those passengers can access all of the bus. With no stairwells, all that space is usable too. It seems odd to advocate accessibility features like low floors and wheelchair spaces, while also advocating inherently non-accessible upper floors in buses.
Given its price, I’m shocked to discover that the New Bus for London doesn’t include lifts.
@Anomnibus: You may not have noticed, but WW asked whether you had any evidence for inefficiency of deckers. Instead of evidence, you have offered your personal explanation of the alleged inefficiency.
But in any case, it does rather look as if the discussion of the relative merits of double-deckers versus artics is running on well-worn tracks, with no particular insights being offered that have not been heard many times before. Granted that it is an important issue, but restatement of old arguments does not really take us anywhere useful.
@Malcolm
Even more specifically, WW asked Anomnibus for evidence that DDs “are a less efficient use OF ROAD SPACE than their articulated cousins”
I don’t think anyone could dispute the contention that a double decker can get more people in a given area of road than a single decker – an articulated bus clearly takes up a greater length than a double decker with the same capacity. Anomnibus’ assertion is that, regardless of how many people you CAN fit in a double decker, there are many people who can’t or won’t go upstairs. Evidently, if upstairs is not being used, the stairs are a waste of space.
If the number of people using the top deck is less than the number who could have sat or stood in the area lost to the stairwell, then the DD is indeed the more profligate. But for how many routes is that the case?
The other factor, dwell time, is only relevant where large numbers of people are boarding or alighting at the same place. At a stop where only one or two passengers board or alight, the number of doors is not a rate-determining factor.
A multi-door artic is the answer where most passengers are making short trips between busy stops, like the 507 – an airside shuttle bus is an extreme example. A single-door DD is the better use of space where the majority of passengers are making long trips and each stop sees only a few passengers – the 25 and 73 were silly choices for artics.
A problem with many modern DD designs is that there is so much space taken up with front platform, engine bay (which are getting bigger as batteries, aircon, exhaust scrubbers etc get added), stairwell, and wheelchair spaces, that it is getting to the point where you can’t get a seat downstairs unless you bring your own – and remember that most disabled people do not use wheelchairs. Indeed, we are rapidly approaching the point where a double decker is, to all intents and purposes, a single decker with a very high floor.
What timbeau said.
Where you have massive passenger demand, it makes sense to go for a big box on wheels with lots of doors on the side. Like this. (Come to think of it, the only single-deck buses I’ve ever seen in Rome that have only one door are these, which don’t seem to have an equivalent in London.)
For the curious, that second link shows the tiny electric bus used on Rome’s 116 bus route that passes through the city’s historic centre.
I’ve just found a video of the bus in action. Note the narrowness (and condition) of the roads, particularly the lack of pavements along many of them. So no, London doesn’t get to cite its medieval road layout as an excuse for anything.
As timbeau implies with his comments on the 25 and 73 bus routes, you need to pick the right tool — in this case, the right kind of bus — for the job. Rome can clearly teach TfL a thing or two about this.
Where the logic of this discussion is pointing, is of course a triple-decker, to maximise available seating capacity for the bulk of passengers, who will be ambulant – possibly with a lift to the 1st floor as suggested by Anomnibus, to improve facilities for the mobility impaired. Stop dwell times would of course need to be adjusted. Please consider the options shown in this link – at least several are real, including a modified Routemaster, and one Italian Job that ran in Rome. http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/a_brief_history_of_triple_decker_buses
@Milton
That purple Routemaster
http://www.busesinireland.bravepages.com/files/london/859uxc.JPG
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39774968@N02/8670031168
is not the bus used in the film – the windows in the middle deck are fake, vinyls applied to the ‘tween deck panelling.
The one used in the film was made from three RTs.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8388/8451426990_ef7b2a20ec_b.jpg
@timbeau – or maybe only two? (The front and rear bays of the middle deck look decidedly non-standard, with the general impression of a modified middle deck spliced between a traditional top and bottom deck). In any case, a shocking waste.
@Graham H
Apparently three buses went into it
RT 2240 http://www.countrybus.org/RT/RTa22.htm#fleet
RT 3882 http://www.countrybus.org/RT/RTa38.htm#fleet
RT 4497 http://www.countrybus.org/RT/RTa44.htm#fleet
@ Anomnibus – I’m sorry but I don’t think Rome can teach TfL very much about buses. TfL’s bus fleet is 4 times larger and I would venture that bus usage is vastly higher in London than in Rome. I’ve only found some old stats but based on those London’s buses have more pass jnys per day than the entire ATAC (Rome’s public transport organisation) network of bus, tram, suburban rail, metro and trolleybus.
Clearly Rome has particular stresses in the centre because of the difficult construction environment making Metros a very time consuming thing to build. One thing that is being ignored is the impact of history and culture. For whatever reason there is a greater willingness to accept more standees on European city buses than there is in the UK. The Brits seems to be prefer having a seat which may explain our preference for double deckers. There are also long standing differences in ticketing practice which can also mean different boarding and alighting practices. Italy has different practice which explains the different physical layout of buses with large centre doors for exit. I expect funding arrangements are also somewhat different but I can’t find anything in English about ATAC’s budget or fare evasion levels.
I just think we have to be very careful in making sweeping statements. The issues facing London and those facing many European cities have some similarities but there are many important differences that make comparison difficult at best and impossible at worst. At a generic level there are modal advantages which may well have their place in London but we’d be rash to say “do it like Berlin” or “do it like Grenoble” in terms of assuring a successful introduction in London (or the UK).
I could argue about the 25 and 73 examples but won’t given the risk of tired arguments. There are very few routes with the same characteristics as the 507 and 521 but that doesn’t mean that bendy buses are not satisfactory on a number of other TfL routes.
@WW
“There are very few routes with the same characteristics as the 507 and 521”
I’m not sure the 507 and 521 share many characteristics anyway. Certainly, from observation, the numbers boarding the 507 at Waterloo are a mere trickle compared with the 521.
After this incident
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3563279.stm
double deckers were drafted in to the 507 (and after the fire at Oxford Circus Tube station back in the 1980s, also onto the 500) and coped. The Strand underpass is not the only reasons why this would not have worked on the 521!
And the 521 is not the only one to have huge numbers boarding at Waterloo in the morning peak – I can remember a time when inspectors were based at Waterloo for the specific task of speeding dwell times by allowing Travelcard holders to board by the centre doors of double deckers – this was in the pre-Oyster days when a ticket could be checked by a Mk 1 human eyeball. But for most routes this is the only place, and only time of day, when long dwell times occur.
And a route can have very different characteristics at different points along its route, or at different times of day. A friend of mine got quite vocal on the idea that London Transport (as it then was) was being wasteful by running almost-empty double deckers past his house all evening, and suggested they could use minibuses at those times instead. He couldn’t grasp the logistical nightmare that would be involved in swapping over vehicles at the end of the peak, or finding garage space for the extra vehicles, or indeed that further down the route (which was quite a long one) there may well be more passengers using the route even at that time of evening.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ScB0Fp-2pr4/SOSb-gfaDhI/AAAAAAAABdQ/gbSN_abukI8/s400/bendydesign.jpg
@Walthamstow Writer:
Continental European cities, including Rome, tend to be much more compact than London, with a much higher density of housing stock. Rome is apartment buildings almost all the way out to the suburbs, so every bus, tram, trolleybus and metro stop has a much bigger catchment area than an equivalent in, say, Streatham, Balham, or Catford. This also makes it much easier to justify spending more money on expensive transport infrastructure: it tends to pay for itself, either directly at the farebox, or indirectly, in the form of a boosted economy.
Some recent work in the CAZ aside, Greater London is (as I believe I may have mentioned once or twice in passing) very much a low-rise, low-density conurbation. That means Londoners have to make longer journeys. A longer journey makes buses with few seats less attractive.
Right technology for the job. Devolved powers for planning and construction of transport infrastructure. A willingness to try alternative technologies – Rubber-wheeled, cable-driven elevated & underground metro in Perugia, (note all the medium- and high-density housing). Properly integrated ticketing. Need I go on?
The UK has a serious infrastructure and public transport problem: it costs a fortune to build, takes forever just to get off the drawing board, and involves so many interfaces, it’s a miracle most of it works at all. It’s fundamentally a political / interface design problem, not an engineering one, and there are going to be some very tough political decisions needed to solve it. [Over-dramatization snipped. LBM]
@ Timbeau – And a route can have very different characteristics at different points along its route, or at different times of day.
Well precisely which is why I’d quibble with your remark about bendies on the 25 and 73. Some of the traffic on those routes is completely ideal for bendies while some of it, the longer distance riders, were probably disadvantaged from the reduction in seats when compared to a double decker. While not as severe as Waterloo there are huge queues at Victoria in the peaks and not just for the 507. Bendies were extremely good at clearing those hence why quite so many bendy routes served Victoria. I’d still go back to a point that I’ve made about the Overground trains’ seat layout is that what commuters usually want is to be able to board the first train. The same surely applies to buses which is why I suspect some people were not happy to lose the crowd busting capabilities of the bendy buses. Note that I’ve been careful to say “some” and not “all” so we don’t need to go into a debate about the exceptions and some people needing seats etc. We’ve done that and I understand there are always exceptions to my general statements.
That final cartoon link is precisely how Leon Daniels described the NB4L to Darren Johnson AM in a Transport Committee session on buses. “We’ve just put the bendy bit on the roof”.
Anomnibus
I noted the tiny size of each single vehicle on that Perugia system
Uneconomic – straight off, I’m afraid, simply because of the small numbers transported per carriage [Snip. LBM]
@ Anomnibus – hadn’t seen that Perugia system before. Looks like a scaled down version of the VAL technology. Certainly the high frequency, low vehicle capacity form of operation is similar to VAL although the latter’s vehicles carry more people. Singapore has similar feeder elevated transit routes in Punggol, Sengkang and Bukit Panjang. They’re reasonably well used and link to the MRT and supplment local buses. I am afraid I can’t see any application in London for what is just another variant of airport monorail technology – well done for getting it under the LR radar!! 🙂 I can only think of a few bus routes in London that use 25 person capacity vehicles. Most routes requires higher capacity than that because the demand is way higher although none are operating at 1.5min headways as that Perugia system apparently does. It still looks like an awful lot of infrastructure to shift 3.5m pass jnys a year.
I also don’t really agree with you about London’s density. If it was really as low density as you suggest then rail transport wouldn’t function very well and yet we have rail systems that are completely overwhelmed in the peaks with demand from within Greater London never mind bordering counties. Ditto the bus network. When I read of low density cities I tend to think of places like Los Angeles where the car rules despite Metro, light rail and bus transit developments. London quite clearly is not LA but it does stretch for very considerable distances and will continue to do so given some of the housing infill is inevitably going to be in the outer suburbs because people can’t afford £1m flats in Hackney or £3m houses in Camden.
You keep promoting your singular densification agenda but I doubt it would ever happen in London. While people want more housing there is already a backlash against the creation of high rise blocks as they’re creating areas that are out of character with their surroundings and also unaffordable. The riverside in Wandsworth borough being a classic example and parts of east London fringing the Thames being another. You can create denser housing but keep it in an appropriate scale. You also need to keep the transport capacity growing in scale with the housing expansion. Going to be interesting to see the impact of two large housing developments in E17 and what that does to buses that are already overloaded in the peaks. What has happened over many decades, if not longer, in European cities is simply not going to occur in the UK in a short timescale.
You can have quite high-density housing commensurate with the “scale” of traditional London living.
It was done about 60 years ago, just around the corner from here & won lots of awards.
It wasn’t continued with because the first cost was high, though the running & maintenance costs were significantly lower.
Try this:
https://goo.gl/maps/awiBD
But the 212 bus route is very well used – double-deckers along this suburban road ….
@Walthamstow Writer:
Minimetro appears to be owned by the Leitner Group, though it’s similar in scale to the VAL systems.
[Remainder of text snipped as off-topic and repetitious. Any further more comments on Perugia or this rail mode will be dispatched henceforth. LBM]
@Greg – the link doesn’t work I’m afraid, but looking at the route of the 212, I suspect it will be very busy next week…………
[Nothing wrong with link. Works fine for me. PoP]
As I understand it, new NB4Ls are to be manufactured without the opening rear platform – making a complete mockery of the original idea.
In which case is there actually any good reason to continue building them, rather than buying the cheaper/lighter ‘off the shelf’ designs previously seen on London’s streets?
(Note I haven’t mentioned Boris once!) [Snipped for politeness. LBM]
Not quite, I think – there will still be a rear door but it will be an external-hung plug door which projects when open, so can only be opened when stationary, as opposed to the current design which retreats inside the bodywork. Perhaps it’s cheaper and the money saved will go to beefing up the aircon and the battery?
Old door
http://www.arrivalondon.com/files/images/i4f4b8ec565e61279296533.jpg
New door
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/457/19179321411_4984e7328d_m.jpg
@Gordon: Perhaps it’s cheaper
Certainly cheaper to operate because it won’t need a second crew member. If I was a New Routemaster
conductorplatform supervisor I’d be wondering about my long term career prospects.@ Alison W – apart from ditching the need for a “conductor” the revised door design removes the risk of people being thumped / having their foot crushed by the inward swinging door design. I’ve seen several photos and read many tweets on social media from people who’ve sustained injuries from that door design. I think part of the issue is that in OPO mode the rear platform area can become crush loaded meaning people can’t move out of the way when the door opens. It brings back the problems of the original DLR trains that had inward swinging doors and people getting thumped by them.
@Ian J
“Certainly cheaper to operate because it won’t need a second crew member. If I was a New Routemaster conductor platform supervisor I’d be wondering about my long term career prospects.”
As far as I am aware there are no plans to modify the existing buses – the change in door design simply confirms that there will be no more than the six existing open-platform routes – 9, 10, 11, 24, 38, 390. Even these only operate with conductors on weekdays. The others, (8, 12, 15, 55, 73, 137, 148, 453) operate in OPO mode all the time.
All but one of the open-platform routes were introduced in 2013. 2014 saw the 148 as the first OPO route, followed by the No 10.
Incidentally, it would appear that CSAs, like witches, do not like crossing over water.
Wikipedia claims the next five routes will be 16, 88, 91, 149 and 159
@ Timbeau – sorry but route 11 has CAs and open platform operation on Saturdays. I also think they work Sundays but am not 100% certain about that and the old press releases, Surface Transport MD reports and Commissioners Reports from 2013 are all distinctly unhelpful on that point.
In terms of the future conversions then my only quibble with your list is route 16 which I’ve not seen TfL confirm yet although it’s been mentioned in Buses Magazine. You’ve also missed route 168 which TfL have publicly stated will be converted but there are issues with the stand at Hampstead Heath. The buses for the 88 are apparently on delivery now and the other routes you list are all contract awards. The 159 converts to NB4Ls one day after the 10th anniversary of the last day of regular full RML operation in London.
@Ww
Yes, sorry I misread my source: the No 11 (and ONLY the No11) operates open-platform seven days a week.
Which is why it was singularly fortunate that there was a CSA on board to assist when THIS happened one Sunday lunchtime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9PP8qYdecw
@WW. I am mystified by the notion that longer distance passengers were disadvantaged by the lower seating capacity on articulated buses. Yes, they may have to stand for a few stops, but after that they have first dibs at any seats that are vacated. I use the Tube very often between Waterloo and points north. About fifty per cent of journeys I have to stand from Waterloo, but am almost guaranteed a seat from Charing Cross onwards. Same principle applies to any bus route.
@Fandroid
“I am mystified by the notion that longer distance passengers were disadvantaged by the lower seating capacity on articulated buses. Yes, they may have to stand for a few stops, but after that they have first dibs at any seats that are vacated.”
That depends on the amount of “churn”. It may work on the Tube, but I frequently find I can only get a seat when my SWT train gets to Vauxhall – by which time its hardly worth it.
And on my fifteen-stop odyssey on the NLL this morning, only one of the four of us in my group ever got a seat.
(BTW, I don’t know why they bothered installing windows on the 378s – they are too low for standing passengers to see out, and for seated passengers they are in the wrong place (behind them!))
@ Fandroid – err well having stood from Stratford to Aldgate on a bendy 25 I think I’d disagree somewhat. Also the 73, even in double deck days, was always full and standing from Newington Green to the Angel. While many alighted there just as many got back on and you’d have to be swift on your feet to grab a seat. It was usually standing room only earlier than that in bendy days – sometimes Church St, usually on Albion Road. If you board at or near a terminus then yes you can get a seat but on several of the bendy routes there were / are substantial flows of people travelling medium to long distances – largely because there is no tube link. The Islington – Dalston – Hackney / Stoke Newington, Old Kent Road, Whitechapel Road, Walworth Road and Victoria – Camberwell corridors are all examples of such. You’re perfectly correct to say there is a decent volume of short hop travel but there is a lot of other distance travellers.
@timbeau
I agree with you about the train windows. I think the people who test these trains must be 5ft tall. None of the ‘modern’ trains have windows high enough to see out of when you are standing up, which makes them feel more claustrophobic that the older ones.
@Chris Mitch
I am told that the seats on the trains on my local line are designed with the average person in mind. That automatically means half the population won’t fit.
(leaving aside that the average person also has (approximately) one ovary, one testicle, 1.999 legs, 1.4 siblings, and lives somewhere in Northamptonshire (the geometric centre of gravity of the population of England & Wales)
I think the trains were designed for twelve-year olds – and quite possibly by them!
@timbeau:
no plans to modify the existing buses
I remember the days when Ken Livingstone had no plans to get rid of Routemasters… It will be interesting to see whether any prospective Mayoral candidates promise to keep open platform operation.
As per http://www.londonbusroutes.net the following routes are due for NB4L conversion:
Route 91 (Trafalgar Sq – Crouch Hill): 6th Feb 16
Route 149 (London Bridge – Edmonton Green): 17th Oct 15
Route 159 (Marble Arch – Streatham): 12 Dec 15
I think these are only routes for which contracts have been signed.
Aside from that I can only laugh through tears at the change in the type of door on the NB4Ls. Boris claimed that the ‘New Routemaster’ should fix the following ‘problems’ with bendies:
– Taking up too much space on the road (check)
– Too much ticketless travel (you can still board a NB4L through any door)
– Not enough seats (64 seats on NB4L – I think that’s 8 more than on a bendy?)
– No ability to get on/off between stops when bus is in traffic jam (even on those routes with conductors they hardly ever let you jump off between stops)
All at a unit cost higher than a conventional double-deck hybrid or bendy bus. Congratulations to all involved. Job well done.
@ Straphan – with the greatest respect to Mr Munster who runs the Londonbusroutes website he’s not always bang up to date with everything. Given most NB4L conversions have been via contract variations which TfL never publish or give details of it’s not really correct just to rely a contract tender award as somehow being the only definitive source of decision making. TfL have certainly said publicly that the 168 will convert. It’s also clear the 88’s buses are due very soon indeed.
In terms of your other comments, and I’m not NB4L fan, I’d just say the following.
1. The NB4L is really rather long which has caused clearance problems on some routes. I happen to think bendies are actually very manoeuvrable but you’ll never get past people’s perception of them.
2. TfL say that fare evasion levels on the NB4L are only slightly higher than for normal buses and aren’t anywhere near those on bendies. There was a TfL paper about this. I can’t see TfL not being candid about this issue given Board members requested the info as have some London Assembly members.
3. Unfortunately the NB4L is so heavy that it cannot and does not meet TfL’s own standard carrying capacity for double deckers – 87 people. Most recent NB4Ls carry either 80 or 81 people [1] but earlier ones are nearer 84 people. Most NB4L operated routes have therefore seen a reduction in capacity overall compared to what they replaced. Only one route has seen an increase, the 55, because it had a frequency increase for its new contract. The typical reduction ranges between 3-6%.
4. Of course the rear platform aspect was always something a tad mythical given the hyperbole from the Mayor being contradicted by what happens in practice. The rather “over the top” actions of customer assistants doesn’t help but then they’re between a rock and a hard place in trying to run safety rules that are contrary to Boris’s own hype about “freedom” and “banning H&S nonsense”. Unfortunately for him TfL and the operators and their staff are all subject to the law of the land.
[1] euro6 spec buses are heavier but the recent ones for the 73 with the revised rear door arrangement are not as heavy as “crew” versions so can carry 1 more person.
Given the removal of CSAs on the routes getting the revised door then presumably that adds one extra passenger option instead,
@ Alison W – there are no plans so far as I know to retrofit “mark 1” NB4Ls with the revised door arrangement. It is only buses built after LT511 that have the new door design and they never had CSAs anyway. I know the point you’re trying to make but I can’t remember precisely how the weight calculation works. Logic suggests it must take staff numbers into account but that rather implies that a NB4L with a carrying capacity of 80 passengers can really carry 82 people (driver & CSA). Anyway let’s see what happens to the CSA role post May 2016 – I’ll be astonished if the role survives although route 11 has been retendered and relet with the same level of CSA coverage as at present. That, of course, doesn’t stop TfL from triggering a contract variation to remove it when it wants to do so. It may even have a cost reduction value already set in the contract but we can’t see that sort of detail.
ITV reports:
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-09-18/transport-bosses-to-spend-2m-correcting-a-flaw-on-buses-as-passengers-complain-of-overheating/
“Transport bosses in London are to spend £2m correcting a flaw on Boris Johnson’s Routemaster bus after passengers complained of overheating. The controversial double decker is to be ‘retrofitted’ with windows which open. All 550 buses in service will get the modification. The new windows will also be fitted to a further 250 buses which have yet to be built.”
[Any comments on this matter to go in the part 1 article please. Malcolm]
Hmm.
I travelled today (for rugby related reasons) on a Brighton bendy. Anyone who believes that a bendy cannot manage tight, narrow and sinous bends should try the 25 on the approach to Sussex University.
@Paulwoking – Glad that you noticed that there. To your comment I’ll add the steep inclines that the 25 also manages at and around the stadium/Sussex University stops.
Not sure if this is the correct thread for this ( Mods- please move to appropriate if necessary?)
Apparently, all major London Mayoral candidates want to pedestrianise Oxford St
See HERE
Where will the buses go?
In this continuum, however, what are the practical possibilities & great difficulties this will produce?
Time for an article, maybe?
Greg,
It has been talked about. Initially it was considered because Sir Peter Hendy called for the issue of Oxford Street to be reconsidered. That looked like something might happen but then days later his move to Network Rail was announced.
Certainly it will be interesting what the approach of the Mayoral candidates are as John Bull speculated a week or so ago. We now have some idea.
I would remind everyone that Oxford Street is “owned” by the City of Westminster so Mayoral candidates can say what they want – it is all irrelevant unless they have the City of Westminster on board.
If there is something substantive to report then it may well get an article. Meanwhile it appears we just have the usual background chatter coming from politicians.
So could all please refrain from typing your thoughts for the moment. If there is a worthwhile time to discuss this we will try and publish something.
Update:
13 comments deleted so farIt is with regret that I have to announce that the Trolleybus traction poles on Ferry Lane bridge, Tottenham Hale (possibly the last ones surviving in London?) are no more.
Only the stumps remain.
Slugabed
See also “Lea Bridge” thread (I think) – apparently there’s work ongoing at track-level, too.
The DFT has awarded money for buses most of which will be electric and with funds for new electric buses for TFL .
See release below –
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-awards-30-million-funding-for-cleaner-greener-bus-journeys
[Deleted. Unlike previous comment, this comment has no obvious relevance to the article and is a routine announcement about a consultation for modifications to various bus routes. PoP]
As a London bus driver I thought I’d give some perspective on the current bus technology from a drivers perspective. I frequently drive a route that uses a fleet of both new (less than a year old) parallel and new (18 month old) series hybrid buses. In general driving the amount of time spent in hybrid ev mode is vastly dependent on how heavy you are with your right foot and from my experience bus drivers do not get any training in how to get the most efficiency from the respective bus types.
In driving the two types of hybrid bus are surprisingly similar. In stop start traffic the series hybrid model generally spends more time in hybrid ev mode but this is negated by the need for it to run the diesel motor at consistent high revs when accelerating hard unlike the parallel system.
Whats interesting if you listen to the engineers the actual fuel savings compared to older diesel only busses isn’t as large as you would be led to believe by the manufacturers marketing material. Those big heavy batteries make for a significant weight penalty it seems. Having spent time driving 14 year old Plaxton president bodied Volvos you can feel just how much lighter they are in the way they drive.
It seems the maufacturers must strive to reduce weight with improved design and weight in order to improve efficiency.
Interesting
Are there official figures for the fuel consumption in service of different bus types on the same route?
And can you explain the difference between series and parallel in the context of hybrid buses? And what types are which?
Indeed. The “marketing material” may perhaps compare fuel requirements for hybrid and non-hybrid for the same gross vehicle weight. This would be more favourable to the hybrids than a “fairer” comparison of buses with the same total weight of passengers only. (And it’s not just the batteries: hybrid buses also have to carry more moving parts around, and the structure has to be heavier to carry the heavier weight).
@ Timbeau – this link http://www.eesi.org/files/eesi_hybrid_bus_032007.pdf explains the difference between series and parallel hybrid technology.
I have not seen comparative fuel *consumption* numbers for various technologies for a long while. Most of the research has been about emissions performance. However doing a bit of digging around on the web has uncovered an interesting site about low carbon buses.
http://www.lowcvp.org.uk/projects/bus-working-group.htm
There are some very detailed guides and presentations (incl two from TfL) if you use the left hand side links to “Low Emission Bus Guide” and “UK Bus Summit”. The latter has the first detailed info I’ve seen about electric buses in London. There are downloadable presentations there although other bits of the site is hidden for “members only”.
Re WW,
LowCVP (originally a DfT / BIS / DEFRA funded quango) does far more than just buses and is probably the one of the best peer analysed and reviewed sources on low emission vehicles and fuels / energy sources, and the only place in the world where vehicle manufacturers, fuel companies and Greenpeace sit down constructively and work together. As a former member rep the member only area is decidedly unexciting and just contains meeting agendas and minutes…
I pointed PoP in the direction of LowCVP when writing these articles.
The original “founder” of LowCVP went on to join T&E and helped blow the whistle on the NOx emission gaming by car manufacturers.
Re Timbeau,
Serial vs Parallel is covered in the article above by simply it refers to where there is serial or parallel transmission.
Serial transmission is electric only transmission similar in concept to new RN warships and Diesel (Electric transmission) railway locomotives. The classic example is the New Bus for London aka Boris Bus etc. or the hydrogen buses on trial on RV1. A current car example would be BMW I3 with range extender (petrol) engine as power source. (RN have also had issues not to dissimilar to the Boris Bus battery and power issues).
Parallel Transmission is mechanical transmission from the engine with electric transmission for energy recovery and reuse (and stop start etc.) and includes all the other Hybrid buses. The car equivalent would be most hybrids including the Toyota Prius.
Another approach would be to categorise transmissions by what drives the wheels. In a serial hybrid, it is only electric motor(s), in a parallel hybrid, some of the power can be delivered to the wheels by mechanical means directly from the internal combustion engine.
Can I take it then that a serial hybrid is much the same as a plug-in hybrid?
A plug-in hybrid can also have its batteries charged from an external supply, like a pure electric car. In railway terms, it is the difference between an electrodiesel and a diesel-electric
(not a perfect analogy: substitute petrol for diesel in most cases, and an electrodiesel locomotive takes electric power on the fly rather than via a battery).
Plug-in hybrids can be considered as electric cars with a backup “get-you-home” (or range extending) internal combustion engine. Hybrids with no plug in facility ultimately take all their power from the i-c engine, although some of the energy delivered by the engine is not used immediately but stored in the battery, or as kinetic energy to be recovered through the brakes.
Re Quinlet,
Plug-ins are available with both serial and parallel transmission depending on the design philosophy of the rest of the vehicle, so never any simple definitions.
You can have a plug-in battery charging facility with either a series or a parallel transmission. Plug-in hybrid cars from major manufacturers are available in both configurations and some have series-parallel capability, presumably with a sepearate generator coupled to the engine as well as a conventional mechanical transmission and traction motor. With series transmission, no complex and heavy variable mechanical transmission is required and the engine, usually smaller than necessary for maximum performance alone, can run at optimum constant speed when required for economy and emissions. Also there’s much more freedom in siting a range extender engine within the vehicle bodyshell for this type as there is no need to align it with a low slung drive shaft. On a bus or tram, small engine-generator modules might even be placed on the roof!
@MT – “On a bus or tram, small engine-generator modules might even be placed on the roof!” I doubt it: for one thing it would reduce the clearances, and secondly, at least as far as buses are concerned, the roof is not designed to be load bearing.
Graham H…. there have been one or two types of rail multiple units with a diesel engine on the roof and Alstom are experimenting with hydrogen fuel cells on the roof ( and the compressed hydrogen tanks too, which probably weigh more!)
@130
Multiple units with roof-mounted equipment are common (as Cross Country finds every time its Voyagers venture along the Dawlish sea wall in a southerly gale, it’s not always a good idea) but the drive train would be interesting if you put an engine up there – but I’m willing to be educated
@Graham H
For obvious reasons, double decker bus roofs are very lightweight, but there are plenty of single deckers with equipment pods on the roof, e.g for air conditioning, hydrogen tanks, batteries etc, or indeed:
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/AC2DTH/single-decker-bus-with-heavily-loaded-roofrack-carrying-bicycles-and-AC2DTH.jpg
@timbeau – easier for heavy rail vehicles where the roof is a fairly solidly integrated piece of the vehicle and which has to bear weights such as pantographs, but putting an engine on the roof of a bus is something else – the roof is hardly load bearing for anything other than the trivia you mention; an engine is something else altogether. In both cases, the loading gauge is relevant and although you can add things to the rooves of single deckers, you do have to design for it and you do have find homes in the interior for such things as ducting, fuel lines, drive shafts (as noted) and the like. Sticking luggage/bicycles on the roof as in India or Peru requires a bespoke vehicle…
Timbeau…..Re drive train – all the diesel engine on roof designs I know use electric drivers, so no drive shafts
I was definitely thinking an all electric transmission would be a prerequisite for roof mounting of a power unit, and clearly a body shell designed to carry the weight! Range extenders tend to be smaller engines than the full size power units used in parallel hybrids, as the intention is to run primarily on stored battery energy, not ever in normal operation with the engine providing the sole source of motive power.
I was aware of low floor single deck rail cars built with all kinds of modules on the roof. Adding a small power unit to accompany these does not seem a major leap of the imagination, and single deck buses could conceivably share such an approach. Depot access and lift equipment for aircon, battery modules etc mounted high up could also be designed to handle the power modules too. Exhaust outlet up at high level like a traditional DMU would not require a pipe through the car body or around its end, and that could equally be applied to street vehicles, a great improvement on noxious gases and particulates being expelled at ground level. Some thought would be required as to how fuel and other engine fluid storage and containment would work safely as clearly any leakage through the ceiling to the passenger compartment would be unacceptable. On the other hand an engine fire on the roof would probably be safer and cause less widespread damage than in an underfloor or rear compartment.
Anyway, it was just a top of the head suggestion!
One issue arising from having -inevitably -mixed fleets of stock,some of which have roofmounted kit and others, under floor, is the problems this makes for fleet engineers. The problem here is how to anticipate the way in which the various types of vehicle are presented for their nightly exams, so that the tools and jigs can be laid out accordingly, which require scaffolding,which need fork lift access, and so on. Central Trains fleet engineers used to complain that they had to waste half the time available rearranging a variety of subfleets that had arrived in a random order.
Sort of off-topic and sort of not …
I was once told that the decision to put all a lot of the gubbins of S stock into the roof to allow for step-free access onto the train and the inevitable rejig necessary as soon as you change the length of the train and where equipment is located meant that Neasden Depot had to be refurbished at a cost of £200 million.
The obvious use of the roof of a single deck bus is to put the batteries (or hydrogen reservoir) there – as depicted in one of the pictures in the article. It still seems inherently unsatisfactory though when it comes to stability.
PoP… the only piece of “gubbins” on S stock roofs which requires roof access is the air conditioners (AC). From the first sketches shown in Metronet’s tender, the AC was always intended to be on the roof. The decision to lower the floor came much later. Even with the lower floor, there is a lot more space under the floor for equipment than there is on the Victoria line trains whose under floor equipment is quite similar.
Neasden needed much work as a) it was old and tired, and some features were worn out b) S stock is fixed formation and it is undesirable to separate cars for lifting c) Neasden is the location for all major work on all 192 trains and d) facilities were needed for features of S stock reinforcement of the power supply and sand dispensing points. (As well as providing for access to the AC[AirCon]).
Amongst all this was the replacement of Neasden depot’s signalling system which was based on LU’s first ever solid state interlocking.
Sorry, way off topic.
100andthirty,
Pleased to hear there was a lot more to it than suggested to me.
Presumably once any significant amount of equipment is housed in the roof, even if just one item, the depot has to be re-thought out. And that applies to buses equally to trains (so we are not off-topic).
PoP…..indeed. air conditioning is generally on the roof these days, the propulsion equipment on low floor trams is also on the roof, and as for any trains with a pantograph. The extent of the roof level staging and manual handling kit (eg crane) dependes on the frequency and extent of work that might be required. ……..
By the way and to get us back on topic, I visited a trolleybus depot recently and went up onto the staging to see the electronic propulsion equipment and trolley poles on the roof. Then we went round the back of the articulated trolley bus to see how they raise and lower the poles. Then they opened the back and showed us the diesel engine….but thet’s another story.
“Dementia rates ‘higher near busy roads'”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38506735
– seems to be well-researched although no clarity yet on the actual cause. I suspect that there will be a lot of assumptions outside scientific circles that it’s somehow pollution related, in which case the generated fear factor may well spur more evaluation of electric buses and the like.
Reggie,
Correlation is not causation!
There could be loads of simple explanations not involving pollution. An obvious one is that houses near main roads are cheaper so attract the less wealthy who can’t afford a more healthy diet or access to private medical care. Or maybe people who live on main roads get less exercise walking to the bus stop because it is closer. All these things could be a factor in dementia as no-one is really sure what causes it.
For similar reasons you can show that life expectancy goes down if you live near a high voltage power line.
One of my concerns is we will adopt a load of anti-pollution measures and people will be disappointed with the failure to detect a statistically measurable health benefit. This doesn’t mean I am against such measures but claims about pollution shortening thousands of lives have to be treated with caution. It is statistically true but the average length of life shortened in a large sample often amounts to just a few days hypothetically calculated.
PoP
Like the “killer diesel” claims being made in London, right now, you mean?
*cough*
Greg Tingey,
Exactly that. The claims are, strictly speaking, true. There is also little doubt that a small portion of the population is severely affected. I suspect it cuts more lives significantly short than road traffic collisions – which are actually a cause of very few deaths in London when compared historically or globally.
However, some of the figures bandied about are highly misleading to the average member of the public who cannot be reasonably expected to correctly interpret their true meaning. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about it though. Even if it didn’t even cause any premature deaths it hardly enhances our city and some people find it very unpleasant.
PoP,
Absolutely! However given that some journalists – and politicians! – do like to “simplify” anything scientific for their audience, I only meant to flag up the possibility of this report being used to justify pet hobby-horses.
If – just to speculate with absolutely no factual basis – the cause were, say, to turn out to be inhalation of extremely fine rubber particles from tyres, then all measures for reduction of tailpipe emissions would have no effect on the correlation highlighted in the research.
Tetraethyl lead in petrol came into focus back in the 1970s as a particularly harmful pollutant. It has been phased out slowly across most of the World since them, and some researchers are claiming possible links between the resulting reduced lead exposure and the corresponding fall in crime levels:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615
Lead poisoning symptoms include decreases in cognitive ability and psychiatric problems such as depression and anxiety. Damage to the central nervous system is not reversible and evidence suggests age-related mental decline is correlated with lead exposure. I expect many urban dwellers in the age groups now becoming prone to dementia were exposed to significant lead over their lives, including from traffic emissions. A connection worth exploring perhaps? While the NOx and and nano-soot from traffic may be slowly destroying our lungs, I would have thought accumulated lead could still represent a more likely culprit for accelerated mental decline.
@MT – and there was a similar move amongst some historians a few years ago to blame the fall of the Roman Empire on the introduction of lead piping. (Not to mention the coinage of the word Saturnine).
Lord Dawlish writes – when I read this,I immediately instructed my servants to take the Roederer lead crystal glasses tothe nearest charity shop.
…and to think we used to ask voluntarily for a couple of shots of Redex.
@MT, GH: The phrase “mad as a hatter” comes from the use of lead in the process of making felt for hats…
Has Lord Dawlish checked the water pipes? Southern Heights Towers was built with lead pipes for water back in the previous millenium. A handy bit of pocket money when the manservant took them to the Scrap metal merchants…
@SHLR -we did check them – v necessary as we moved into a house that had belonged to the village blacksmith family turned plumbers for the previous century and a half. Getting rid of the lead pipes (not to mention half a ton of failed horseshoes and a small but very heavy portable anvil) that the Luck family had installed over that period, was a priority.
Have the experts on here been able to interpret the announcement from the Mayor yesterday?
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-announces-10-new-low-emission-bus-zones
– Does this represent purchase of more lower emission buses than previously announced?
– A rearrangement of the routes on which existing buses are allocated?
– A rehash of previous announcements?
Incidentally. Followers of diamond geezer will have been alerted to another example of poor proof reading in this press release – some of the routes specified aren’t logical. Despite what’s written in this announcement, the route from Abbey Lane to Woodgrange Road doesn’t take in the Mile End Road.
I’m certainly not arguing against the introduction of lower emissions buses, but will this make much difference to pollution levels when tfl’s own figures suggest that buses are only 5% of vehicles.
@ ID – I don’t think it makes any material difference to the numbers of greener buses being bought. TfL were clear, in evidence to the Assembly Budget Cttee this week, that “hybrid DDs or cleaner” would be mandatory post 2018. The few single deck routes in Z1 have been put in a new tender tranche for early retendering to give time for the introduction of electric or hydrogen infrastructure before vehicles arrive. I have also seen comments that the requirements for greener buses have been in scope of “in progress” retendering for a fair while. This means that new buses are already in place or will be delivered in the near future to allow a significant boost to the air quality performance of buses. Examples include a lot of routes in Putney and others in the Streatham area. There is also the euro6 conversion programme, yet to start, which can also be targeted geographically if needed to convert diesel buses which are too young to be replaced.
I think the announcement is merely adding some flesh to the “bones” of a previously announced initiative. We only knew Putney and Brixton/Streatham were in line for “greening” before but now we have the main package. In terms of your “5%” comment then that’s perfectly correct but I expect the Mayor / his advisors are seeing the wider picture with the proposed “T charge” and ULEZ enlargement being seen as other elements that will change behaviour and impact volumes. You’ll note that none of the proposed corridors stretch beyond Zone 3/4 which roughly aligns with the ULEZ boundary.
I think the basic elements of bus fleet improvements are there. The one main variable is the speed of progression to the use of electricity and hydrogen powered vehicles, especially double deckers. Other than the “public acceptance” risk around ULEZ and the charging regimes (no ranting please on this point!) then the other main risks are the speed of vehicle development and uptake of greener buses and taxis. Some of this is just a repeat of two development phases we’ve vanguarded in London – low floor buses and then hybrid double deckers. LT and TfL pushed the market (and thus supplier development) for both of these and is doing the same for cleaner propulsion in buses.
Has there been any figures on whether bus use has stabilised in recent months, perhaps due to the hopper ticket?
In an entirely unscientific experiment of just me I’ve taken about 10 bus trips since it was introduced compared to none the year before as it compared favourably price wise to train and/or tube. Unfortunately despite it I’m still very reluctant to take buses as congestion is so high now on many routes.
@ Eddie – the London Datastore has periodic updates for all TfL modes (except TfL Rail). I track this info and changes. Bus patronage is showing no improvement at all. Thus far patronage is down on last year (nearly 59m pass jnys for P1-8) with no sign of increases or variation from seasonal trends. Clearly this is on network level aggregated numbers that will hide changes at area or route level. TfL will have this data but it is not routinely published for public consumption (unfortunately).
TfL were asked about the Hopper ticket by the Assembly Budget and Performance Cttee this week. The query related to the cost of lost revenue given the apparently much higher than predicted use. TfL were “accused” of having the “wrong” numbers but they explained that if people are now using two buses rather than waiting for one through bus there is a use of the Hopper facility but no revenue impact compared to before (through bus cost £1.50, two buses now cost £1.50). TfL said they are tracking use in detail and regularly but it was too early to reach any firm conclusions on patronage growth / modal transfer / impact on routes (I’ve read a little bit in to what they specifically said there). I’m not sure two Assembly Members were entirely convinced on this but AMs are never convinced about TfL’s numbers – every budget time there are accusations of numbers being wrong, “smoke and mirrors”, lack of transparency.
@SH(LR)
“The phrase “mad as a hatter” comes from the use of lead in the process of making felt for hats…”
It was mercury, not lead, that was used in the felting process.
If the introduction of “Hopper” had occurred before I got my Freedom Pass, it would have been income neutral. I used to wait for the 340 to get from Stanmore to Harrow, rather than get the H12 to Harrow Weald and then a 140/182/258/340 onward. Which is what I do with my pass.
@IslandDweller – buses may be only 5% of vehicles but TfL’s figures say their buses are responsible for 20% of NOx pollutants from transport sources. However I’d like to see a comparison between vehicles with emissions normalised by vehicle kilometres and person kilometres for a more rounded picture.
Again according to TfL, private cars are the single largest source of NOx pollutants (36% made up from 24% diesel, 12% petrol vehicles). A story in yesterday’s Times (paywalled…) claimed that even new Diesel cars had worse real world performance than new buses and HGVs because cars are only measured under lab conditions which bear little relationship to real world emissions, even when manufacturers aren’t cheating.
I can see that TfL need to announce bus-related measures so they can say “See, we are doing our bit…” when the ULEZ impact upon other drivers becomes more apparent.
Regarding the impact of pollution for people living beside major roads, see the following interview with one Mr David Wetzel of Brentford (now where have I heard that name before….?)
Although for issues at this particular location, TfL buses certainly can’t be held responsible.
Oops, forgot to post link to video.
http://www.brentfordtw8.com/default.asp?section=info&page=airquality006.htm
Living within earshot of Brixton Hill, I can certainly say that diesel-drive buses are responsible for a very high proportion of the engine traffic noise, particularly when going uphill/southbound, so I imagine it is commensurate to some degree with emissions. Life has begun to get a noticeably more peaceful now that hybrids have started taking over. (It’s a similar step-change from the days when cronky old Titans added to the racket by letting off sudden whip-like air brake hisses at random moments with excruciating decibel levels. Things do improve!)
It’s dismaying to see the statistics from the air monitor in the High Street. If the completion of having all buses on the A23 corridor hybrid or better gets their proportion of the offending emissions down from 20% to, say, 5%, it’s still difficult to imagine what other measures could bring down the levels to the EU limits anytime soon. Even with the Ultra Low zone, I can’t help feeling there will still be simply too much traffic puffing out ‘ultra low’ emissions, and that it won’t really improve until electric (or any other properly zero-emission technology) really impacts the car market and makes meaningful inroads into the commercial and haulage sectors. As some manufacturers make both buses and trucks, one would hope that experience gained from hybrids on the former will help with the evolution of the latter – even though it’s only a stepping stone to zero emission – but I see no evidence of their being in a hurry.
@NickBxn I have to admit I am guilty of dragging some tired old busses up that hill. Having said that i’m not sure how quiet it’s gonna get as some of the hybrid buses are gonna be pushing their diesel motors quite hard to get up that hill at any sort of speed.
@timbeau I don’t know if the engineers keep the much of an eye on it. Though i’m sure the bean counters in head office are right on it. I would assume a lot of the fuel savings of the hybrids comes from not running the IC engine when stationary rather than the minimal driving in EV mode. Which begs the question should we bother with heavy hybrid systems at all where a lighter bus with stop start may be just as efficient
The bus types are the Envio 400mmc (Series) amd a volvo B5LH not bodied by Wright bus 🙂 detectives in this thread can probably work out who I work for but i’d rather not say as I think they are pretty funny about drivers talking about such things.
Both are nice buses though I prefer to drive the volvo mainly for personal reasons. The buzzers in the Enviro for indicators and such drive me up the wall and I struggle to get comfortable in the cab as I have long legs and short arms and the way AD mounts their pedals and consoles doesn’t help that. Id also say that if your inclined its easier to keep the Volvo in EV mode than the Enviro. It tends to want to kick in the diesel motor a lot earlier wheres as if you are gentle you can get pretty close to 20mph in the volvo in pure ev mode between stops though the enviro does seem to want to operate in EV mode more often. Maybe this has something to do with the differing hybrid systems.
I don’t have a set route so I’m constantly trying different machinery its quite interesting how the bus types are all designed to tfl spec but are so different. Personally for pure driving pleasure nothing beats a well looked after Volvo B7TL and most drivers I chat to in the garage agree with me which is a shame as they are rapidly being replaced. Interestingly as I was dropping my bus off to the garage tonight a brand new bus was being delivered with a rather large BYD badge on the front…