New Hybrids for London Bus routes 2, 19 and 249

A quick news update on the London Bus scene; Arriva London has won the contract to operate new hybrids on London Buses routes 2, 19 and 249.

London Bus contracting: operators get paid by the mile

This is one of my spontaneous articles going into great detail about London Bus operations.

Ever since London Bus services were privatised during the mid-1990’s, to competitive tender, I’ve been watching closely and have found out they’ve talked about the Cost-Per-Mile on the route contract.

I won’t go into detail about the contracting, but TFL have hosted a document on their website which is titled ‘London’s Bus Contracting and Tendering Process’.

Here’s the selected routes I’ve listed, the calculations may not be accurate so please forgive me if there’s any errors on this:

A short update on electric buses for London and the Volvo SRM at the 2016 Imber Bus Rally

Wright SRM at the 2016 Imber Bus rally

Credit to KS LAB (KS Chow) on Flickr

First off, let me bring you up-to-date regarding the Electric Bus rollout in Central London.

From LOTS

Sunday 21 August

1) The first few of the BYD/ADL E200EV electric buses (SEe class) are now in London being prepared for use on routes 507 and 521, hopefully during the coming week.  The intended fleet class code has been changed from EE to SEe  (i.e. to link the Enviro200 class SE with e = electric, this being in lower case lettering –a ‘first’ for London).   The two electric Irizars (EI 1 and 2) were last used on the ‘Red Arrows’  on 15th August prior to being moved to New Cross for intended use soon on route 108.

Photos of Bendy Buses in London

Taking a trip down memory lane to the decade of the 2000’s, twelve London Bus routes operated with articulated buses. The type of articulated bus was the Mercedes-Benz O530 Citaro G artic.

The photographs are taken from Wikimedia Commons.

London Buses route 12

Go Ahead London Central MAL91 BX54UDZ

By oyxman - Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2141681

Operated from 06th November 2004 till 05th November 2011

More night buses to come in line with Night Tube

Newbury Park station which serves the Central Line

Last year I published an article back on 29th August 2015 when I was disappointed with route 296 operating a night service in order to connect people from Newbury Park station to Romford.

But thankfully route 296 will operate their weekend night service in line with the Night Tube on 19^th August 2016.

Sullivan buses wins route W9 and retains 298

A brief news update; Sullivan Buses, a small bus company based in Hertfordshire has won London Buses‘route W9’ and retains route 298 contracts.

Abellio wins East Anglia railway franchise

Abellio wins the 9-year franchise to operate the East Anglia railways; their contract commences on October 2016 and runs until 2025.

Abellio is owned by Nederlandse Spoorwegen which is a state owned company in the Netherlands and run by the government. Despite Britain voting to leave the EU, no changes have been made to Britain’s railways.

Wrightbus reveals their new range of electric buses

As we are set to see the Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMC BYD eBus appear on Red Arrow routes 507 and 521, Wrightbus have unveiled their range of electric buses.

StreetLite EV

From Wrightbus

Wrightbus has unveiled two key new products from its ‘Electrocity’ range of buses - the StreetLite EV and the StreetAir EV.  The new offerings are part of a range announced last year which builds upon the company’s extensive experience to date and will provide operators with an unprecedented choice of vehicle formats and charging systems.

London Buses Route 5 to serve Queen’s Hospital

Another consultation has come for Route 5 as they are proposing to divert the route to serve Queen’s Hospital in Romford.

First Crossrail train takes to the test track

How time flies! We are already in August now and I have some news regarding TFL as they have unveiled the new Crossrail Elizabeth Line ‘Class 345’ train at Bombardier Transportation test track in Derby.

From TFL press release

The first of the new state-of-the-art Elizabeth line trains, which will transform travel across the Capital, was unveiled by TfL today as it took to the test track at Bombardier Transportation in Derby.