Mid March 2017 London Bus Tender Awards with New Euro VI hybrid buses!

As we approach the middle of March 2017, we see new contracts being awarded for London Bus Services as part of the new tender awards.

Contract awards: LBSL intends to enter into new contracts for the following routes with the operators listed below:

Route	Current Operator	New Operator	PVR	Vehicles
45	London Central	Abellio London	21	New Euro VI hybrid double deck
90	Metroline	Metroline	16	New Euro VI hybrid double deck
176 (24h)	Arriva London South	London Central	24	New Euro VI hybrid double deck
188 (24h)	Abellio London	London Central	26	New Euro VI hybrid double deck
222 (24h)	London United	Metroline West	17	New Euro VI hybrid double deck
243 (24h)	Arriva London North	Arriva London North	33	New Euro VI hybrid double deck

Contracts will commence on the following dates:

19th August 2017: Route 243.

2nd September 2017: Route 90.

16th September 2017: Route 222.

11th November 2017: Routes 45, 176 & 188.

I’m glad the new tender contracts require bus companies to purchase the new Euro VI Hybrid double deck buses. Compared to the previous tenders where bus companies prefered  to use their existing Euro V diesel buses! In order to help combat climate change and harmful diesel emissions, TfL needs to require operators to use low emission hybrids or zero emission hydrogen or battery-electric buses for their contracted routes. You can view previous articles on route tenders here.

Since TfL won’t be purchasing any more ‘three-door, two-staircase’ hybrid New Routemaster buses, it will be interesting to see if the bus operators are going to purchase hybrid buses which use the New Routemaster design cues like the Alexander Dennis Enviro400H City or the Wright SRM.

To finish off, we have an update from LOTS:

In the past week, the first four HVs from Arriva have began service on route 2 from Norwood.  Already, several new HVs have gone into service on the 242 (CT) and 243 (AR), the latter only temporarily. Three MVs from Tower Transit at Westbourne Park and due for route 13 on 1st  April have been used on the 23 in the past week.  A few more Stagecoach E200s from Catford and Rainham have moved to Barking for temporary use on the 167and 362 until new E20Ds are delivered.

A very gradual conversion of Stagecoach route 277 at Bow from Scania to new E40H(MMC) continues, releasing more Scanias to West Ham for route 97.

As my regular readers will know, you can follow me on Twitter and Google Plus which is @CLondoner92

Multimedia

Buses outside Waterloo station, London August 2016 by clondoner92

Buses at Waterloo Bridge August 2016 by clondoner92

Image Attribution

By Au Morandarte from Chiswick/Romford, London, England - DSC00424Uploaded by Ultra7, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30843586