More Enviro400H City buses for London bus routes 133 and 333!

The Enviro400H City design is based from the New Routemaster bus.

On 1^st October I published an article showing that routes 133 and 333 will be having futuristic style Enviro400H City buses.

Proposed changes to 23 London Bus Routes

Massive new proposals for London Bus Routes 3, 6, 8, 15, 22, 23, 25, 46, 73, 137, 172, 242, 332, 390, 425, 452, C2, N2, N3, N8, N15, N22 and N73.

Routes 3, 8, 15, 73, 137 and 390 use the three-door and two-staircase hybrid buses known as New Routemasters.

From TfL Press release

TfL has today launched a consultation on proposed changes to 23 central London bus routes to better match bus services with demand from passengers.

Behold, the four-year fare freeze for London Transport!

Some good news has just arrived on my desk - fares for London Transport services have been frozen for four years!

Timetable and maps for London National Rail services

Looking at TfL’s website - they don’t feature timetables for National Rail services, only timetables for their own services such as London Buses, London Underground, Docklands Light Railway, Tramlink, London Overground and TFL Rail.

TfL do have a map though which shows the railway services in London as they are part of the Oyster Pay-As-You-Go fare system. TFL also provide “National Rail journeys,” on their Journey Planner.

Two more hybrid routes for London buses

This is a quick follow up to my previous article titled ‘November 2016 - New Buses for London Buses’

The new TFL tender awards show that two bus routes will have Euro VI Hybrid double-decks.

November 2016 - New Buses for London Buses

Since I haven’t published any news updates for a few days, I’ve decided to use the list from the London Bus Routes Service Changes page to show you the up-and-coming routes with new buses.

Route 254 to convert to New Routemasters

Route 254 map

Sorry for the late news update - LOTS have reported from the TFL tender awards that route 254 will be the next to convert to the three-door two-staircase hybrid buses called ‘New Routemasters.’

TfL Board papers for 8th November 2016 meeting

The board papers for the 8th November TFL board meeting are out so below I will show you some parts from those board papers.

First a quick look at the Commissioners report.

ULTra Heathrow Pods PRT – we need them everywhere!

ULTra (Urban Rapid Transit) is a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system for Heathrow Airport.

The pod-car system was developed by a British engineering company called Ultra Global PRT. The pod-cars use four car batteries as they don’t have any engines; they use 50% less energy than a bus does, are driverless, computer driven and are guided by lasers on an open guideway; they also charge automatically at the charging points and instead of rails, they use rubber tyres.

Optare unveils their electric double-deck - launched at Euro Bus Expo 2016

First we saw the Alexander Dennis Enviro400H MMC Virtual Electric for route 69 launched at the Bus Expo, then the BYD double deck electric bus for route 98 - followed by the Volvo B5LHC with Wright SRM (2 door New Routemaster) body, and now Optare has unveiled the Metrodecker EV!

From Optare

Optare celebrated the launch of the Metrodecker EV prototype at an unveiling ceremony at Euro Bus Expo 2016 at the NEC in Birmingham. The Metrodecker EV will go into service in central London with Go-Ahead London in early 2017 to prove the concept and provide operational feedback to aid further development. The 10.5m, lightweight, fully electric, double deck has a passenger capacity of 96 and a forecast range of between 105 and 145 miles on a single charge. Optare is working on further developments to the vehicle which will increase the range in production vehicles to over 150 miles.

Volvo launches the B5LHC double-deck electric hybrid with SRM (2 door New Routemaster) body!

At last, Volvo has unveiled the B5LHC Double-Deck Electric Hybrid chassis at the Euro Bus Expo show in Birmingham.

Route X26 awarded back to Metrobus with double deck buses

In this article, I have an exciting news update from LOTS from the recent London Bus tender awards: