Tuesday 23 January 2024

London Bus Tender Awards: Route 17 To Continue Using New Routemasters - All New Urban Buses Are To Be Zero-Emissions In The EU By 2035

The latest London Bus Tender Awards have revealed that route 17 will continue to use New Routemasters, and Metroline won the route 28 contract with existing diesel double-deck buses.

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

Route 17
Retained by Metroline
Peak Vehicle Requirement (PVR): 15
Vehicles: Existing New Routemaster
Contract Start Date: 20th July 2024
Contract End Date: 20th July 2029

Route 28/N28
Current Operator RATP-Dev London Transit
New Operator Metroline West
PVR: 19
Vehicles: Existing diesel double deck
Contract Start Date: 4th May 2024
Contract End Date: 30th April 2027

Route 395
Retained by: RATP-Dev London Sovereign
PVR: 5
Vehicles: Existing diesel single deck
Contract Start Date: 7th September 2024
Contract End Date: 3rd September 2027

The diesel and hybrid vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards.

At the moment, route 28 is currently using zero-emission double-deck buses, which are Metrodecker EV by Switch Mobility (formerly Optare). Once Metroline West takes over on May 4, 2024, they will be reverting to using diesel double-deck buses as part of the new contract. Unfortunately, there are no new zero-emission buses for this announcement of the London Bus Tender Awards.

As this is another short article, I decided to briefly expand by showing you the news from Europe, as the European Commission has set an agreement to reduce CO2 emissions standards for new trucks and buses in the European Union.

From the European Commission news release:

The European Commission welcomes today's agreement between the European Parliament and Council on a provisional political agreement strengthening CO2 emissions standards for new heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) entering the EU market from 2030. The Regulation will set new ambitious CO2 emissions reduction targets for 2030, 2035 and 2040. The new standards will ensure that this segment of the road transport sector contributes to the shift to zero-emissions mobility and the EU's 2030 climate ambitions and climate neutrality by 2050.

Ambitious targets and a wider scope

Today's agreement sets CO2 emissions reduction targets for HDVs of 45% for 2030-2034, 65% for 2035-2039 and 90% as of 2040, compared to 2019 levels. The scope of the Regulation is expanded and these standards will now apply to almost all trucks (including vocational vehicles, such as garbage lorries, tippers or concrete mixers as of 2035), urban buses, long-distance buses and trailers.  Specific emissions reduction targets are also set for trailers (7.5%) and semi-trailers (10%), starting from 2030.

To accelerate the transition to zero-emission public transport across Europe, new urban buses must reduce emissions by 90% as of 2030. All new urban buses will have to be zero-emissions by 2035.


You can read more by clicking on the link in the tweet below.

Here are the rest of the tweets that I posted on Twitter/X.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter/X by searching for @CLondoner92 or by clicking on the direct link to my Twitter/X page here. I'm also on BlueSky and Mastodon.

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