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.
A Malaysian View on London Buses
I found this article on a Malaysian newspaper website.
It is of an interview of the Chief Executive of the Malaysian Land Public Transport Commission, where they talk about improving bus services over all of Malaysia.
What is interesting, is that they are talking about using a London model, where different private companies tender for specific routes. I won’t comment yet, but make sure you read the article.
Liverpool in Trouble Again
But this time, it’s not their players or fans, it’s just that an engineering train has got derailed at Winsford, preventing their fans from getting to the Carling Cup Final at Wembley today.
The information has not been released as to the team that the driver supports.
Docklands Light Railway Efficiency
I just saw one of the most efficient pieces of cleaning, I’ve seen in a long time.
I had boarded a DLR train from Canary Wharf station towards Stratford, when I noticed the floor in one section was absolutely filthy. It looked like someone had spilt a full carton of coffee.
At the first station out of Canary Wharf, West India Quay, I was surprised to see a lady, in a high visibility vest enter the carriage, with what was best described as a good old-fashioned mop and pail in plastic. By Poplar, she had it finished and left the train and a beautifully clean floor.
Everybody was rightly impressed. The cleaner was even pleased that she finally discovered the errant coffee carton, that had hidden itself deep under a seat.
Alexandra Palace
I went to Alexandra Palace station yesterday and then walked up the hill to Alexandra Palace itself.
Note if the visibility had been better, the views of the rest of London would have been very good.
How Various Nationalities Could Get to the Olympics
London has always been a multi-national and multi-cultural city, so there has always been large groups of various nationalities in various parts of the city. Where I live is just a stone’s throw away from where my French Huguenot ancestors lived and go a little bit further south and east and my Jewish ancestors could be found at the start of the 19th century. Even now, certain Caribbean groups have settled in places like Brixton,New Malden has been populated by Koreans and there’s an area of Camden with lots of Georgian restaurants. London is a complete jigsaw of nationalities.
So you can get a few mildly humorous rules about how the various nationalities might get to the Olympic Park.
The Koreans in New Malden, as do many, have an easy trip. They just take a train into Waterloo and then take the Jubilee line round to Stratford.
Remember the London Underground rule to estimate journey times; 2 minutes per station and add 5 minutes for an interchange.
The French should walk to the Park from West Ham or Hackney Wick stations, on top of the Greenway, as this walk and cycle path, sits on a major part of London’s sewerage system, which was built by a man called Joseph Bazalette, whose grandfather was French.
A few of the Russians will be very rich, so will be in VIP limos, but if they and their fellow countrymen do go by public transport, they’ll take the Olympic Javelin Shuttle from St. Pancras station. But one day they might like to go by the Central line and go a few stops past Stratford to look at Gants Hill station, which is to a design for Russia by Charles Holden. There’s some pictures I took of the station here.
The Orange Train for the Dutch at the London Olympics
London’s new Overground system is four lines, with a fifth to be added in October, later this year.
The Dutch will feel at home on these trains, as the colour scheme of the trains and stations is predominately orange and the line is shown in orange on the tube map.
The major line, the North London line, also travels across North London from the Olympic site at Stratford and connects to buses and trains to get to the Heineken House at Alexandra Palace. If you go further west you get to Hampstead Heath and Kew Gardens, two of the best places in London to get over a hangover.
I suspect that getting to Alexandra Palace during the Olympics may be difficult, as the two train routes from Kings Cross St. Pancras station, where the Olympic Javelin Shuttles arrive, the suburban rail to Alexandra Palace station and the Piccadilly line to Wood Green station, are crowded most of the time, even without the Games. If you can get to Alexandra Palace station, it’s a much shorter walk up the hill to the Palace.
So a better alternative might be to take the North London line from Stratford to Highbury and Islington and then take the suburban rail from there to Alexandra Palace station. It will certainly avoid the inevitable crush and wait at Kings Cross.
Basques Want to Join an Independent Scotland
I can’t work out if this was a Spanish joke or not, but it is reported in today’s Times. The leader of one of their political parties has said it and has also waxed lyrical about kilts and said that Edinbrgh should replace Madrid as their capital.
Probably it’s just another way of stating the old adage – You don’t have to be mad to be the leader of a political party, but it helps.
I actually think on a day of such miserable foreign news, the story lightens everything up.
On the other hand it could be a large publicity stunt on behalf of Bilbao-based company CAF, who are building the trams for Edinburgh’s tram system and they want to get it finished and of course get paid. When it does get finished, I suspect that a mixture of Scots, Basques, paella and Scotch will be a good recipe for a party.
The Tube
I watched the first part of this documentary about the London Underground on BBC2 last night and it was fascinating.
The thing that impressed me most, was how a very multi-racial staff acted as a coherent team and stood up so well to the hassle they got.
I shall be watching next week.
New Track for the London Overground
To connect the Overground from the two Peckham stations; Rye and Queen’s Road to Surrey Quays station, a new length of track has to be laid. These pictures show the Peckham end.
As the pictures were taken by a train going towards London Bridge, the new track is very much in the right background
This post shows the junction at the other end, where it joins the southern branches of the East London line.
The Anonymous Widower 