For TfL, is the announcement that Wrightbus will design & build Routemaster 2 a matter of pride, indulgence or just pandering?
Or, is there a real need for a bespoke bus for London? Are the conditions in London really special to the capital? It seems there is and they are. Mayor Johnson who, behind Sir Moir Lockhead, Brian Souter & Lord Adonis, was yesterday declared by New Transit as Britain’s fourth most important & influential person in transport, talked enthusiastically of the RM2 as a “new icon”.
They said no one would be man enough to consider building one. They said there’d be virtually no market outside London—and this probably still holds true. That hasn’t stopped ’em.
Whatever your view, this design is highly important. Following yesterday’s early Christmas present to the people of London, we now know that the ADL & Wrightbus discussions favour the latter. With products like the handsome Gemini 2, the award of this contract gives Wrightbus the edge as British Isles’ premier bus builder, though it’s still not the biggest. It offers Wrightbus cachet & status. Much time, effort—and money—has gone into the project.
What can we expect of and from the New Bus for London, the NB4L?
- Three doors, including a lockable rear platform, to allow one person operation. This much had already been leaked by TfL.
- Two staircases, on account of the lockable rear platform.
87 seatsA total capacity of 87. To accommodate the stairs and platform, expect a long and relatively unmanoeuvrable wheelbase when compared to bendies these will replace.- A greener powerplant than any hybrid on the market, with a claimed 15 per cent fuel efficiency when compared to the current London hybrids. This technology could easily be applied to any bus on the market, of course.
- It’s likely to skew the market for second-hand double decks. TfL announced a year ago that double the expected 400 Routemaster 2s would be built, cascading young SLF stock onto the open market.
- The May 2008 design winners may have contributed little to the overall design.
- The safeguaring of jobs at Wrightbus.
9 comments:
So, Wrights are to become the new AEC Park Royal winning the same respect!
I wonder what it will look like. Not like the silly competition entries, I hope and different to the existing Provoncial designs, I hope too.
Surely a total vanity project, trying to sneak under the radar by being announced whilst journalists are still nursing their hangovers from the annual Christmas party? :)
I wonder what the unladen weight will be??
Modern buses are ridiculously heavy and despite all the gaudy plastic and low floors are generally pretty unsophisticated in construction, so it will be interested to see if there is any real innovation under the skin.
Will it be a pre-historic separate body/chassis or an integral??
It might at least make the London bus scene vaguely interesting again, as right now there is absolutely no reason to get excited about it.
"It might at least make the London bus scene vaguely interesting again, as right now there is absolutely no reason to get excited about it."
The thing is though - as passengers, surely the thing we most crave is a totally uninteresting bus scene? We want stability and familiarity, not excitement. We want a service so dependable and uniform that it's bordering on the dull.
Bah humbug, everyone! :)
Point 3 is not what TfL say - it's to carry 87 passengers, which in line with most current London 'deckers probably means about 66 seats and a theoretical 20+ standees.
Dennis Dash said...
"Point 3 is not what TfL say - it's to carry 87 passengers, which in line with most current London 'deckers probably means about 66 seats and a theoretical 20+ standees."
I didn't think that 87 seats could be right - even with 66 seats and two staircases and three doors it's going to have to be considerably bigger than the existing designs. The current Berlin design (MAN Lion's City DD) is 13.7m long, but does have 83 seats and three axles. However, I cannot imagine that such a beast would be any great advantage in London, in terms of manoueverability, etc?
Surely one point in favour of the Routemaster was that it was short and therefore better able to cope with the London traffic? I would have thought that a 28-30' long vehicle with one door and staircase should be able to offer about 50 seats, possibly a couple more. The services would probably need to be more frequent, but there would be potential to reduce running times to offset some of the additional cost. The service should then appear more attractive to the passenger - in theory, at least.
It sounds as if the Borismaster is going to be a missed opportunity to try something genuinely different, that might actually have worked well.
I shall stick my out (albeit not very far) and state that this bus will never make it beyond the pre-production prototypes.
There will be a new mayor in 2012, who will be scrapping this bus, on the grounds of cost, at least. These vehicles will be more expensive than conventional ones (when London's transport budget will be under pressure) and they will have next to no value outside the capital (which pushes up lease costs, if that's the way the operators choose to acquire them).
There is no need for a special 'London Bus' any more. The current input of models have proved themselves in London, and are not like the DMS's of old, unsuitable for the capital.
The production of these vehicles will also skew the market by releasing young SLF deckers, and additionally being unsuitable for cascading down to other city fleets at a later date.
Whilst the 'bendis' have attracted bad publicity, to be fair, they have worked on the majority of the routes they were allocated too.
I hope the money runs out for this project, before Boris has the chance to waste it
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