Category Archives: The Guardian

Boris Johnson’s grand replacement for the bendy bus, which will run from Hampstead to Pimlico, was billed as the greenest, cleanest in the world but does it live up to its promise?

On the upper deck of the No 38, the passengers giving their verdict on the Boris bus might equally be discussing the man behind it, the mayor elected on precious few promises other than to rid London of his predecessor’s bendy buses.

“It doesn’t make sense,” claims one commuter. Another counters: “It’s a nice upgrade – and it makes you a little bit happier when you see the new, shiny one coming along.”

A few prototypes have run in London since 2012, but now the Dalek-like visage of the New Bus for London is to flood the No 24 prestige route from Hampstead through Trafalgar Square to Pimlico with upgraded models – the first full service to start making Boris Johnson’s grand, costly bus dream a widespread reality.

The 28 buses are the first instalment of 600 to be delivered over the next three years – the culmination of Johnson’s rallying cry in 2007. As a putative Conservative challenger to Ken Livingstone, he tapped into nostalgia for the Routemaster for his first policy of note.

Critics say the bus has come with a hefty price tag and high running costs. They question the wisdom of the open rear entrance, the boarding platform that became emblematic of fun, leaping Boris versus dour Ken, worried about access for all. And they question the environmental credentials of the bus heralded as the greenest yet.

Early jibes that the £11m budget brought just eight prototypes proved unfair, but there is no question that the bus has cost more than envisaged – exploding Johnson’s pledge not to exceed the bill for existing hybrid diesel-electric buses. Instead of the £305,000 off-the-peg equivalent, the price escalated to £354,500 for each bus – unfortunate timing when London has to make the case to preserve its transport budget in the chancellor’s spending review. Transport for London (TfL) claims this fixed price for the entire order equates to £326,000 at today’s prices, once inflation and leasing costs are factored in. Conductors will cost about £62,000 for each bus, or £37m extra a year.

So is it worth it? The mayor, naturally, rhapsodises about his bus, recently telling a city hall audience he would “clean up the air with a wonderful new bus, the cleanest, greenest in the world”.

But the New Bus’s case is best made by two champions from a very un-Boris background. The first route-24 bus out of Pimlico garage at 6am this Saturday will be driven by Sir Peter Hendy, London’s transport commissioner, and Leon Daniels, head of surface transport at TfL – two veteran bus lovers whose Christmases have all come at once from a mayor brash enough to fork out for such a gleaming, expensive toy.

“It’s fabulous,” said Hendy. “It’s a lovely vehicle, very comfortable, popular, well-designed – everyone likes it. They love it.”

Daniels has admitted to having waited four decades for something like this – a bespoke bus, built to a high specification, just for London. While it retains the Routemaster’s curves and its rear platform – open only when a conductor is aboard in the daytime – three doorways and two staircases mean more rapid boarding and access for wheelchairs and pushchairs.

Fuel consumption and emissions have not, on the prototypes, been as impressive as expected. But Daniels insists that results from the few on route 38 are not a valid benchmark for what the bus will achieve when fully operational. “In any event, it’s the cleanest and most compliant bus we have.”

London assembly members are yet to be convinced, and Greens and Liberal Democrats point out that the bus will not even meet the mayor’s 2020 target for an ultra-low emission zone, claiming that Johnson’s “obsession” has locked the capital into today’s diesel technology.

Hendy shrugs. “Technology is changing. They won’t be the best or the only ones [on the road] at the end of 14 years, [their London lifespan] but they will be a very decent bus.”

With Treasury eyeballs on London’s budget, TfL is at pains to stress the economic benefits and jobs sustained in a nationwide supply chain for the buses, built by Wrightbus in Northern Ireland. Johnson is well versed in reeling off suppliers around the UK: engines from Darlington, seats from Telford, moquette from Huddersfield, wheelchair ramps from Hertfordshire, and so on.

Whatever the economics, it’s hard to escape the fundamental reason why two genteel swaths of London will awake this weekend to find a new bus linking their boroughs: the Routemaster’s open platform and all it symbolised. As Johnson puts it, the ability to “hop on, hop off – fall over, should fate intervene in that way …”

Livingstone has no regrets over the Routemaster, despite the political fallout – he had, notoriously, said that no one but a “dehumanised moron” would scrap it. He happily admits having once enjoyed jumping on and off the moving bus. Getting older, and becoming a father, changed his view. “If you’re old, disabled, with kids or heavy shopping, it’s impossible … You can’t expect to run a bus fleet where 10% of Londoners can’t physically board.”

Most of all, he thinks Johnson, in pursuing a populist flourish, has missed an opportunity to bring in something cheaper that would have really tackled pollution and air quality in London: electric buses. “The technology is now there for a proper electric bus. If I’d won I’d have ordered 9,000. The manufacturers are waiting for a city to place an order to get them going.”

Back on the route-38 prototype, Dom Harwood, 28, a composer, continues to enthuse about the hybrid bus, with additional conductors creating jobs: “Two people rather than one.”

Even the sceptic, ceramic designer Emmely Dovaston, 22, says she prefers travelling on the quieter, cooler new bus but is dubious about the cost of the conductors, and points to fares that have inflated 50% under Johnson. “I’d rather have cheap travel. At the end of the day, it’s a bus.”

Facts and figures

Cost

New Bus £354,000

Hybrids c £305,000

Fuel consumption

New Bus 6.74mpg

Hybrid 6.1mpg

Emissions

New Bus 2.048g/km of NOx

690.23g/km of CO2

0.012g/km of PM

Average hybrid 7.7g/km NOx

864g/km CO2

0.048g/km of PM

Passengers per bus

New Bus 87 (25 standing)

Hybrid 84 (23 standing)

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