First of all, this is not a political blog and this article is a response to the London Assembly’s report on the bendy buses.
From London Gov
With over two billion passenger journeys a year, bus usage is around double that of the London Underground. But bus passenger numbers are in decline.
Between 2014/15 and 2016/17, the number of passenger journeys made on buses fell by six per cent.[1]
The primary reason for the fall in usage appears to be the rise in traffic congestion on London’s roads.
There has been an increase in ‘excess wait time’ for bus passengers of 20 per cent in the three years to 2015/16.[2]
The Mayor has set out ways in which TfL will try to reverse this trend, but will the measures be radical enough? London’s bus network needs to change as the city grows and evolves and the area of London most in need of additional bus capacity is outer London.
In its second piece of important work on the capital’s buses, the London Assembly Transport Committee report ‘London’s bus network’ is published today. It tackles the difficult decisions facing the Mayor and TfL. The report recommends:
- Moving towards a more efficient network design based on the principles of the feeder/trunk model.[3] Articulated buses (aka bendy buses) might be the best option for these routes as they provide both a higher capacity and faster loading/unloading than standard double decker vehicles.
- Improving the bus experience to attract new passengers, including the information provided online, at bus stops and on-board, and making it easier for people to change. TfL should also consider introducing Wi-Fi on buses.
- Prioritising new orbital bus routes and express buses.
- Redistributing bus capacity to outer London. There are currently too many buses in central London.
- Reforming the bus service tendering process.
- Tackling congestion to halt the decline in passenger numbers.
Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, Deputy Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee said;
“As a Committee, we’ve looked in detail at London’s buses in the past year – and what we’ve discovered has highlighted the urgency for change.
There’s a huge demand for more buses in Outer London - but at the same time, we need to make bus travel more attractive to passengers. Express buses, orbital routes and Wi-Fi will help to give buses a much needed boost.
Bendy buses are controversial – but in outer London they may be the solution to more capacity on routes that feed stations. They also increase accessibility, with more space for wheelchairs.
Reducing congestion is only going to be possible if we give drivers more viable public transport alternatives. The Mayor and TfL need to make jumping on a bus a more pleasant passenger experience.”
Having a quick scan through their full report:
Stakeholders in outer London told us that the bus network needs more express routes. These routes have limited stops, allowing faster travel between major centres. London has only eight express routes at present.
The ones I know are the X26, X68 and 607 - I’ve already written about the express bus routes in London that are shown on the London Bus Routes website. If you know of any more express routes then let me know in the comments section below.
The Mayor has said in his draft Transport Strategy that more express routes may be needed, but stopped short of including any specific proposal to introduce more of them.
There’s currently a consultation to propose a new express route, the X140 which runs parallel to the main route 140 which I mentioned in a previous article.
Articulated buses might be the best option for express routes. Also known as bendy buses, these were used from 2001 until 2011, and provided both a higher capacity and faster loading/unloading than standard double decker vehicles.
The three-door, two-staircase hybrid New Routemaster bus also provides faster boarding because of ‘open boarding’, which the bendy bus provided.
They were withdrawn from the network following a manifesto pledge by the previous Mayor.
Which was over the issue of fare evasion, and the same Mayor, Boris Johnson introduced a three-door, two-staircase hybrid bus which was suppose to have an open platform; this lasted for four years on six routes which were 9, 10, 11, 24, 38 and 390 because of TfL cutting the number of conductors last year. But the one-person operation (OPO) New Routemasters have caused an increase in fare evasion because of the three-door open-boarding provided by the New Routemaster.
Articulated buses may be appropriate for use on newly designed routes and offer passenger benefits, including more space, faster journeys, and enhanced accessibility for disabled passengers.
The bus network is difficult to understand from a passenger perspective. In contrast to the tube, the sheer variety of routes, destination and interchange points can make the bus network confusing, and this can deter people from using it. Analysis carried out for our investigation by JRC Ltd suggested that bus routes serving particular corridors could be colour-coded like tube lines, helping people to understand the network and where they can interchange between corridors. TfL has recently launched a pilot programme of colour-coding buses running on seven routes in and around Barkingside, in the London Borough of Redbridge, to test out this approach.
This is ideal in creating more Bus Rapid Transit schemes for Greater London. The East London Transit now features three-door open boarding because of the New Routemaster rollout. I’ve published an article about the New Routemasters branded as their own network. I’ve also posted images of AEC Routemaster buses with route branding in an article related to route branding.
Currently, the New Routemasters are on (daytime) routes 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 21, 24, 38, 48, 55, 59, 68, 73, 76, 88, 91, 137, 148, 149, 159, 168, 189, 211, 253, 254, 390 and 453, East London Transit routes EL1, EL2, EL3 and night routes N3, N8, 10, N11, 12, N16, 24, N38, N55, 76, 88, 148, 149, 159, 189, 390, 453 and EL1.
This makes a total of 33 New Routemaster routes during the daytime.
The articulated buses served routes 12, 18, 25, 29, 38, 73, 149, 247, 436, 453 and Red Arrow routes 507 and 521. Only 12 routes were served with the bendy bus.
So this means routes 12, 38, 73, 149 and 453 were ex bendy bus routes which are currently served with New Routemaster buses.
Back in 1992, I mentioned in one of my articles how a bendy bus was used on route 180 for a short term trial.
With technology advancing so fast, I would like to bring to the reader’s attention that China has built a battery-electric virtual tram which doesn’t use rail tracks, and they are enabled to be driverless. This is known as The ART, which was developed by CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co Ltd.
Over in Australia, Sydney’s Inner West and Canada Bay councils are proposing to have trackless trams for the Parramatta Road. You can read more about this here. Perhaps TfL should propose a trackless tram?
I recommend checking out my article ‘fare evasion on New Routemaster buses’ which talks about the withdrawal of the bendy bus being the cause of fare evasion. This was part of the previous Mayor Boris Johnson’s policy. I also talk about other transport systems which use the open boarding system which the bendy buses and New Routemaster provide.
The New Routemaster rollout has ended but the legacy of the design lives on in the Wright SRM and the Alexander Dennis Enviro400 City, both of which are gaining more interest from bus operators in Britain.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Google Plus by searching for @CLondoner92
Related article
The tale of the 'open boarding buses' (Bendy Bus and New Routemaster)
Photos of bendy buses in London
Image attribution
By Arriva436 - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10736645