“We should on day one, act one, scene one, hold a competition to get rid of the bendy bus”
Thus Spake Boris, back last year. Today, far from day one, act one scene one, it’ll be some way past day one, act one, scene one of the next Mayoral term before they’re phased out, as Boris seems to have realised that contracts can’t be torn up willy-nilly. It’s called respect for property rights, and the Conservatives used to be keen on it - who was it who compared the renationalisation of Railtrack to the actions of the Mugabe regime*? The Guardian today:
The first of London’s 393 bendy buses will be retired next year when contracts are renewed on three routes, including the popular no 38 from Hackney to Victoria Station, and operators will be told to replace the 60ft long vehicles with double-deckers.
Let’s get back to the table of dates and add in the number of buses on each service (PVR - the peak daily requirement).
- Route - Start - Duration - End
- 12 - 31/07/2004 - 5 years - 31/07/2009 - 31
- 18 - 23/08/2003 - 5+2 years - 23/08/2010 - 32
- 25 - 26/06/2004 - 5 years - 26/06/2009 - 43
- 29 - 14/01/2006 - 5 years - 14/01/2011 - 29
- 38 - 20/07/2002 - 7 years - 20/07/2009 - 47
- 73 - 01/05/2004 - 5 years - 01/05/2009 - 43
- 149 - 18/10/2003 - 5+2 years - 18/10/2010 - 27
- 207 - 09/04/2005 - 5 years - 09/04/2010 - 25
- 436 - 09/02/2008 - 5 years - 09/02/2013 - 26
- 453 - 16/02/2008 - 5 years - 16/02/2013 - 23
- 507 - 01/06/2002 - 5+2 years - 01/06/2009 - 9
- 521 - 01/06/2002 - 5+2 years - 01/06/2009 - 19
Today’s announcement is presumably the 38 plus two of the 12, 25, 73, 507 and 521. The latter two are monstrously unsuitable for double-deck operation, incidentally, being high-volume short distance central London routes derived from the Red Arrow operation, which pioneered standee single deckers in the 1960s.
What we do know is that if all goes well, there’ll still be a PVR for 49 bendy buses in 2012 when the next Mayoral terms starts.
* Boris Johnson, of course (h/t Alex Harrowell)
Tags: 3 Comments
3 responses so far ↓
stop bending bus 25 i live ilford where i born with mum and i am deaf too get bus 25 nornal double buses that more easy and give more room for old pleple ok cos that call free central line bus and you save a lot of money?
Who pays for the early write-down of the bendys? Us council tax payers will one way or another.
The fact is that aside from worries about fare dodging, these buses take less time for passengers to get on or off and it’s easier to get a seat!
I presume, like most buses, they’re owned by leasing companies. With rail vehicles, the DfT effectively guarantees they’ll be used by someone even if a franchise is ended or transferred. If TfL have a similar deal it’s going to cost ‘em to get out of it. If the leasing company only has a deal until the end of the particular contract then it’s their lookout. Obviously there’s a limited market outside London - they’re right-hand drive and multiple-door entry, which pretty much precludes most users except the one I’ve seen suggested elsewhere: airports.
However, it has to be remembered that Livingstone replaced most of the bus fleet in the last few years, well before time, but those were buses with a better second-hand market than a used bendy, being mostly bog-standard ODO double-deckers.
The secondhand market and desire to keep leasing revenue high is primarily behind what Boris dislikes about modern transport, that it’s impersonal and bland (or ‘Stalinist’, as he charmingly puts it - it’s a bus, not the f*cking gulag). It’s actually a consequence of privatisation and free trade, of course.