Boris Watch

I’ve dug up the contract expiry dates for the various bendy bus routes - these *should* be the first opportunity for a phased withdrawal to start:

• Route - Start - Duration - End
• 12 - 31/07/2004 - 5 years - 31/07/2009
• 18 - 23/08/2003 - 5+2 years - 23/08/2010
• 25 - 26/06/2004 - 5 years - 26/06/2009
• 29 - 14/01/2006 - 5 years - 14/01/2011
• 38 - 20/07/2002 - 7 years -  20/07/2009
• 73 - 01/05/2004  - 5 years - 01/05/2009
• 149 - 18/10/2003  - 5+2 years - 18/10/2010
• 207 - 09/04/2005 - 5 years - 09/04/2010
• 436 - 09/02/2008 - 5 years - 09/02/2013
• 453 - 16/02/2008 - 5 years - 16/02/2013
• 507 - 01/06/2002 - 5+2 years - 01/06/2009
• 521 - 01/06/2002 - 5+2 years - 01/06/2009

You can see from that that we have the first two coming up for retendering within a few months, new contracts starting in June next year.  Ironically they’re the original two bendy bus routes; short, frequent, high-capacity Red Arrow services for which only really a bendy bus is suitable, and which have been single decker since the 1960s.  No scope for your new Routemaster on those, conventional double deckers aren’t suitable, so what’s it to be?

As for the other ten, four are up in 2009, 3 in 2010, one in 2011.  The other two are scheduled to be bendy throughout Boris’s term in office, so it’ll be interesting to watch those.  What’s noticeable is how badly the contract timings align with possible Routemaster stuff, by the time the thing’s off the drawing board most of the decisions on the equipment to use on bendy routes will have to have been taken.

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