The Anonymous Widower

The Bus Design Wars

There has been criticism from the usual suspects of the New Bus for London, saying it is just a vanity project and too expensive. It is the latter, if you don’t take into account the design and certification costs. But then when could politicians do arithmetic? Especially hard-left or hard-right ones!

In some ways though the New Bus for London, is just another skirmish in the battle for control of who designs and builds the UK’s buses. And the only winners of that will be the passengers, the bus operators and probably employment in either Northern Ireland or Yorkshire!

So what do the passengers want of a bus want other than it be reliable, easy to get on and off and comfortable?

Some would like wi-fi and I’ve seen this on buses in Reading and Cambridge.

Others might like groups of seats of four with a table and I’ve seen that in Reading.

Leather seats also feature on some buses in Cambridge.  And comfortable they were too.

If you are disabled, in a wheel-chair or with a baby in a buggy, you want easy access. London’s dual-door buses make this much easier than some places, where single-door is the norm.  Manchester for example, still has 40% of buses without wheel-chair access, whereas London has a figure of virtually 100% wheel-chair access.  In my view single-door buses are not acceptable for wheel-chair access.

Londoners also want the hop-on/hop-off ability of the old beloved Routemaster.

So the specification of buses is going upmarket just like that of your average luxury car is.

Let’s look at the specification of the standard red London bus. It may seem very similar to other buses you see around the country, but with extra features.

All London buses have at least two doors, to ease boarding.  How bad a single door is was illustrated to me on a new Wright bus in Manchester, where everybody clustered by the driver, distracting him and making the process of loading and unloading difficult. Anybody with a buggy or in a wheelchair probably couldn’t have got on or off. I was sitting next to an off duty bus-driver and he said it was only to save money that the bus company didn’t buy double-entry/exit buses. But he had to put up with all the aggro around the single door!

Note that wheel-chairs always enter or exit through the door at the middle of the bus.

London buses also talk you through the route and display where you are.

Displays on a London Bus

The picture also shows one of the security video screens on the bus. Would you commit a crime with upwards of sixty people watching?

London buses have been to this specification for some years now and even the older ones still running have two doors and route displays.

Currently, there are three main types of double deck bus, that have been delivered in the last three years or so, each delivered by a different manufacturer.

Scania OmniCity

The Scania OmniCity is built in Poland and route 56, which runs near me uses them.

Scania OmniCity

This is one loading and unloading at the Angel today.

Wright Gemini 2

The Wright Gemini 2 is built in Northern Ireland generally using Volvo chassis components.

Wright Gemini 2

There are two types; a conventional diesel bus and a hybrid version.

Alexander Dennis Enviro 400

The Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 is another British-built bus from Yorkshire.

Alexander Dennis Enviro 400

As with the Gemini, it is available in both conventional and hybrid versions.

Hybrid Bus Logo

Increasingly, this logo will be seen on the side of buses, as Transport for London have said that from 2013 all new buses must be low-or zero-emission.

I tried to get on the single New Bus for London, but couldn’t find it today, as it seemed to be very popular with bus enthusiasts.

The New Bus for London will stand or fall on how it meets the objectives I outlined earlier in this post.

The current design has three doors and two staircases, which may seem excessive, but they should speed up loading and unloading.  I hope  tests have been done on a mock-up with real people to prove the theory. Boeing and Airbus do this with their airliners, so why shouldn’t bus designers?

But one of the advantages of two staircases is that it gives more places to hide the some parts of the hybrid drive system, like the diesel engine, the generator and the batteries.  The actual electric motors are hidden in the rear wheels and do regenerative brakimg too.

In fact, the propulsion system of the New Bus for London and all future hybrid buses, will probably change drammatically over the next couple of years.

As batteries are expensive and have to be replaced every couple of years or so, so they are one of the major running costs of a hybrid bus. But Torotrak have come up with a flywheel-based solution to store energy. Someone will make it work, even if they don’t.  Their prototype looks to be smaller and cheaper than a current set of batteries.

There is also a big beast that has entered hybrid drive systems for buses and larger vehicles; BAe Systems with HibriDrive. There are a lot of new buses needed both in the UK and worldwide in the next few years and BAe Systems will eat their fill from it. They will only pour petrol on the Bus Design Wars.  And we know who’s going to win that; the passengers, the bus operators and hopefully UK-based builders.

February 27, 2012 Posted by AnonW | News, Transport/Travel | Buses, Design, London | 2 Comments