Recently I received an email from TFL Consultations regarding Route 15H frequency change.
The purpose of the consultation is to change the frequency of the
service from 15 to 20 minutes to maintain the services reliability. 85
stakeholders (including me) took part on the consultation.
Taken from ‘Response to the main issues raised’:
TfL's response to main issues
raised
There was opposition to the proposal to reduce the frequency of the
Heritage Routemaster 15.
This included the following:
Opposition to reduced frequency
The regular fully-accessible service on route 15 provides sufficient
capacity. The reduction in frequency of the heritage service will increase its
reliability without the need for additional financial support, by allowing
buses more time to complete their journeys. When buses keep more closely to the
advertised timetable this can reduce waiting times for intending passengers.
TfL should be increasing the number of Heritage Routemasters vehicles
in order to maintain or increase the frequency
TfL makes every effort to maximise value for money and public benefit
from every pound which it spends providing services. The proposed service is
considered sufficient for the purpose of allowing our customers to experience
travel by traditional Routemaster. A high frequency service of modern fully
accessible buses operates on the parallel route 15.
The Heritage Routemaster should be should be retained so that tourists
and visitors have an opportunity to experience them. The proposal is the
beginning of the end
The Heritage Routemasters will still be available for customers to
experience and see in operation in London. A new contract has been let to
secure the continued operation of the service.
There should be an enhanced level of publicity/communication/advertising
for the Heritage Routemaster service
The 15 Heritage Routemaster will continue to be publicised through the
wide variety of media used to publicise the London Bus Network.
A quick look at the ‘Consultation report’ showed they mention one of
their stakeholders.
As a representative of the Routemaster Association, Andrew Morgan
opposed the frequency change. He said “Routemaster vehicles are available
and the service should be maintained at the original frequency for the benefit
of Londoners and visitors to London alike. We should not allow the sole
remaining Heritage service to be reduced so that it becomes acceptable to
provide a worse service to potential travellers; it should be a flagship bus
service to show not only bus travellers in London but also across the world how
a bus route should operate, and reducing it to provide a reduced service will
not do this.
Additionally, maintaining the frequency, the Routemaster operation
provides a useful addition over this section of the network and vehicles are
regularly full when other parallel services are at capacity. If the service is
reduced, this additional capacity will be lost.”
Scrolling down towards ‘Appendix B – Summary of key issues’,
one person suggested cancelling the
route 15H service.
As I remember, I took part in the consultation to help bring more
publicity to the Route 15H service. I had a quick look at the TFL website and
there’s a reference on the Central London Bus Map where it lists bus routes;
under Route 15 it says “Some journeys between Trafalgar Square and Tower of
London use heritage Routemaster buses (0930-1830 daily).”
Also, on the their New Routemaster page it says “Due to great popular public support,
heavily-refurbished and re-engined examples are kept and used - with conductors
- on part of bus route 15 in central London.”
TFL won’t be doing much to publicise the route 15H service so I hope
my article will help give it some publicity. London Bus Routes have a timetable for the service alongside
the main route 15 service. Also, if you have internet access on your smartphone
you can check out the Routemaster buses from the London Vehicle Finder website.
Since its 10 years of the Heritage Route (as it officially started on
14th November 2005), I will be doing an article commemorating the
anniversary of the service. Route 9 used to have a heritage service between
Kensington High Street to Trafalgar Square but it lead to removal because of
increased patronage for the main route 9 which is served by Wright New
Routemaster buses.
So despite the opposition, the changes are still going ahead. So the
service will be every 20 minutes from 14th November 2015.
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Related
article
Multimedia relating to route 15H
Image attributes
"Routemaster London bus route 15 to Tower Hill" by Kevin.B - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Routemaster_London_bus_route_15_to_Tower_Hill.JPG#/media/File:Routemaster_London_bus_route_15_to_Tower_Hill.JPG