It’s the 149, not the 18, which is next in the timetable. The 149 is one of the 2010 batch, however, so we’d expect an announcement on the 18 shortly, if all else holds true, in line with the most recent TfL board minutes.
Details are based on this piece which is mostly behind a paywall, but the most interesting thing the article claims is that the PVR only increases from 27 to 30, which, since the Bendy Timetable predicted 41, is clearly about a 25% cut in capacity. That’ll save a few quid, Boris. Ram ‘em in, I say, it’s not like they vote for you.
Transport for London today announced new contracts for two bus routes in the capital. Both of the awards are on the basis of conventional diesel-engined vehicles rather than hybrids.
The announcement also includes the conversion of route 149 from bendy bus operation to conventional double deck. The change sees an increase in peak vehicle requirement with 30 vehicles required instead of 27.
Boris hates bus users, as I’ve said before. For the record the timetable prediction was this:
Route Tender 5 5+ Old PVR New PVR Revised End Date
149 18-Oct-2003 18-Oct-2008 18-Oct-2010 27 41 18-Oct-2010
which presumably means about a year from now for the replacements. Another interesting point to make here is that the 149 is the first debendification for which TfL published the artic tender details (the first three were before tenders were commonly published). Here are the details:
Route 149/N149 Number of Tenderers One Successful Tenderer Arriva London North £ PA Accepted Bid 7,100,793 (Artics) Lowest Individual Compliant Bid 8,371,840 (Artics) : 7,493,250 (Double Decks) Highest Individual Compliant Bid N/A Cost per mile of awarded contract £/mile 6.38 Reason for not awarding to Lowest Bidder N/A Joint Bids Routes 149/N149 and 349 awarded on the basis of a joint bid totalling �10,256,563 per annum
So if value for money Boris is on the ball here, his decision to cut capacity by about 25% should mean the bid comes in around £5.5-6m a year, allowing for inflation. We’ve no idea how many companies bid, though or whether it was retained by Arriva, whose webpage indicates just what they had to do to cope with the flood of buses for the 38. One debendification prediction that hasn’t yet been tested is that bus companies will price up future bids to cover the costs of paying for the decommissioning.
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3 responses so far ↓
Is there a link for the 25% capacity cut on the 149 route?
“We’ve no idea how many companies bid”
What they do is meet in a pub and decide who is interested in running the service. The ones who are put in what they think is the lowest amount they can ‘make a killing on’ – the others then provide ridiculously large quotes to make the genuine ones look cheap. The civil servants fall for it every single time – probably because it’s not their money they are spending (and of course the nice bus company might have bought them a beer or two).
…that aside, I am curious to understand why the lowest compliant bid was £8,371,840 and yet the accepted bid was £7,100,793 – this seems to imply the accepted bid was not compliant. I see that there was only 1 bidder (coincidence?) but the bid accepted does not match the lowest compliant bid.
Is this how we ensure the best value for money for the state run transport system?
This is worse than an Afgahn election.
that does not make sense, it says “(artic)” next tot eh accepted bid – surely not bendy winning?