Thursday 7 July 2016

£2 million higher fuel cost for New Routemasters



This is a short update regarding the 3 door 2 staircase hybrid bus called the New Routemaster.

According to the Finance and Policy committee which will be held on 8th July 2016, which links to a paper titled ‘Operational and Financial Performance and Investment Programme Reports – Fourth Quarter 2015/16’, they say:


2.14 Surface Transport operating expenditure was £100m lower than Budget over the full year, due to £75m net cost reductions, £42m of project rescheduling (partly offset by a £27m overprogramming provision) and a £10m reclassification of risk expenditure from revenue to capital. Cost reductions totalled £107m and included:
The main cost increases were:
£7m extra costs on buses to improve reliability and a further £2m higher fuel costs for New Routemasters with the actual miles per gallon achieved less efficient than that assumed in the Budget.

In the same paper it says:
2.26 The key items that have been rescheduled include:
£6m delays in New Routemaster delivery

It's worth mentioning that the Estimated Final Cost (EFC) for the New Routemaster has increased to £346.7 million!

Below that there’s a summary which says:
Additional authority of £62.2m was approved by the Board on 3 February 2016 for the purchase of up to 195 additional New Routemasters. The EFC, which include the cost of the prototypes, has increased accordingly.

Finally, on the Financial performance section of this document, they say:
Net future year scheduling of £112million:
Other re-phasing included £6m on New Routemaster as a result of the production schedule being reprofiled to spread deliveries more evenly into London, which gives us an improved ability to absorb the new buses into the fleet.

Thankfully, the New Routemaster design has evolved to a more standard spec which features a 2 door and 1 staircase design, it also uses the Volvo B5LH hybrid system. The name of the bus is called Wright SRM (Son of Routemaster) and they will be purchased by private bus operating companies instead of directly by TFL. Six of these will appear on route 13 which is expected to happen by September 2016. Their alter ego is the Alexander Dennis Enviro400H City which feature designs based on the New Routemaster and the Enviro200 MMC, they are currently on routes 26 and 78.

This was just another short update so don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Google Plus which is @CLondoner92

Creative commons image by Can Pac Swire

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