Comments on: Boris bus bollocks

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:31:22 +0000

Some interesting points there – I am not at all aware of exactly how the old Routemaster was constructed, although each weighs about 7000kg empty compared to at least 11500kg for a conventional double decker today, although admittedly the Routemasters are shorter and not quite as wide as a regular double decker.

There are 2 things to bear in mind though: the requirement for new buses to be low floor / disabled accessible, and for the new buses to also conform to newer legislation on crash worthiness. So could such a bus be built with a weight similar to an old Routemaster? I doubt it frankly…

By: John W

John W — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:03:14 +0000

Reading this page has got me wondering…. Are the new routemasters going to use the routemaster style design, in which case there is no chassis to worry about, rather front and rear sub frames. This would help account for the reduced weight, as a mass of unnecessary steel is removed from the design. Also the original 72 passenger version of the RM was powered by a 115hp engine – 85 kW and since the speed of traffic on London has reduced since then I fail to see that problem. As you say the current double deckers in use are sold all over the world, which means they meet a whole range of criteria, many of which are not relevant to public transport around London.
I do agree that they will have to be financially viable, so unless tfl is proposing a huge order for these it could be troublesome, but starting from all the preious work done on routemasters and not from scratch makes life very muc easier.

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:31:34 +0000

Agh, well, I have unexpected skills! Don’t forget I did write a MA thesis about European railway policy, so I’m a bit of a travel nerd.

By: Bente Kalsnes

Bente Kalsnes — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:26:29 +0000

Jon, you are more nerdy than I thought:-) Where did that depth of bus tech knowledge come from? You could enter a new field, tech+transportation+politics. Your new blog design looks good, very structured and clean.

By: Sarah H

Sarah H — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:28:40 +0000

In fairness to the TFL timeline, the press release does point out (at the very bottom), "The first prototype of the new bus will be on the streets of London in 2011". Peter Hendy has said that these designs are "not the actual buses you will see on London streets", and stressed that production on the original routemasters started over five years after the first prototypes were produced. That said, I'm with you on the general principle. So is a decent transport expert . And buses certainly aren't London's most pressing transport problem. If only Boris (or anyone) had campaigned on a Copenhagenise platform, then we could have a proper debate about sustainable transport in the capital.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:43:26 +0000

Agh, yes, there’s an advantage of the new Routemaster: nice long sides for atheist adverts!

As for being a bus expert: no, I’m not at all. I just have a way of noticing everyday things, and try to draw the political point from those!

By: Steph Gray

Steph Gray — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:21:59 +0000

I thought it was atheism you were strong on, but it turns out buses are your real expertise

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:07:41 +0000

Sorry, but look at that thing in side profile, and compare the proportions of that with the normal London bus, pictured. The maximum width, length and height of a double decker is reasonably restricted, and I don't think the Aston design bears this in mind. Image from here.