Thanks to London Reconnections for helpfully tabulating the seating capacity and size of the Borismaster:
BM Capacity
- Total Capacity: 87
- Lower Deck: 22 seats
- Upper Deck: 40 seats
- Seating: 62
- Standing: 25
BM Dimensions
- Length: 11.2m
- Width: 2.55m
- Height: 4.4m
- Weight ? kg
Let’s take a moment to add in some comparators:
RMXL [PDF] (Autocar bulbous thing) Capacity:
- Total Capacity: 86
- Lower Deck: 28 seats
- Upper Deck: 48 seats
- Seating: 76
- Standing: 10
RMXL Dimensions
- Length: 9.8m
- Width: 2.55m
- Height: 4.1 m
- Weight: 8230kg
Wrightbus Gemini 2 HEV Capacity:
- Total Capacity: 87
- Lower Deck: 24 seats
- Upper Deck: 41 seats
- Seating: 65
- Standing: 22
Wrightbus Gemini 2 HEV Dimensions
- Length: 10.8 m
- Width: 2.55 m
- Height: 4.4 m
- Weight: 12,271 kg
and just for fun…
Routemaster (RM) Capacity:
- Total Capacity: 69
- Lower Deck: 28 seats
- Upper Deck: 36 seats
- Seating: 64
- Standing: 5
Routemaster (RM) Dimensions:
- Length: 8.4m
- Width: 2.4m
- Height: 4.4 m
- Weight: 7515 kg
Routemaster (RML) Capacity:
- Total Capacity: 77
- Lower Deck: 32 seats
- Upper Deck: 40 seats
- Seating: 72
- Standing: 5
Routemaster (RML) Dimensions:
- Length: 9.1m
- Width: 2.4m
- Height: 4.4 m
- Weight: 7815 kg
What does this mean? Well, no conductors, for a start – the low standing capacity of the RM was explicitly so the conductor could get round and avoid fare evasion. Secondly the war on seats continues. As a noted bus commenter said a few years ago:
Could anything be more contemptuous of its customers than a modern bus? The seats are hard, there are far fewer downstairs than on the Routemaster, and some face backward…
…Never underestimate our masters’ obsession with outward form, as opposed to function and content.
Well, 22 lower saloon seats is far fewer than the Routemaster in a bus two metres longer and also fewer than any ‘modern bus’ Andy might have experienced lately manages, again in rather less length. It’s perhaps not surprising that having urged Boris not to renege on the Routemaster pledge Gilligan has finally lost patience with his old idol’s, er, obsession with outward form:
What passengers want from their bus is a seat, but a modern one-person double decker has very few seats downstairs. Enormous amounts of space are wasted, particularly with the staircase, which TfL (unlike most other operators) insists must be straight.
…
From the glimpse on the video, it looks as if all the unnecessary staircases and doors may take up so much space that there will very few seats downstairs. Passengers may have hated the bendy buses, but TfL loved them. Its ambition is quite clearly to create a bendy-bus experience on the lower deck of the new vehicle.
Well, Andy, I’ve got little sympathy. You wanted Boris elected, you conspired and smeared and concealed evidence and did everything you could to promote his campaign and your reward is exactly what we predicted – a shallow Mayor easily distracted by glitzy baubles and constitutionally and temperamentally ill-suited to the job you so enthusiastically promoted him for. This ‘pointless mess’ is *your* pointless mess, Mr. Gilligan, and I intend to rub your damn interfering nose in it as a lesson to other self-proclaimed Great Journalists not to overreach their limited abilities.
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The Autocar RMXL cheated on the seating capacity to make it look better. They didn’t drop enough seats for the staircase. The seating pitch was also less than TFL requirements. This gave them at least 6 extra seats on the upper deck. Not sure about the lower but I presume 4 extra seats.
well done. That kennite is a right prat
Oi – where’s my accolade – I pointed out just yesterday that I felt we were being sold an empty shell i.e. Standing room only
http://www.boriswatch.co.uk/2010/05/17/borismaster-first-thoughts/
It’s no surprise that the penalty for such elaborate design and an over emphasis on stairs and doors would be reduced seats.
Now if I were Boris I would have tested this bus by getting 3 single mothers to get on the bus with pushchairs and a load of shopping and we’l see how quickly they block access to upstairs – especially as I suspect the pram / wheelchair area will be another thing sacrificed for Boris’s vanity.
Once again – arch Lord Gilligan tries to befriend the people, but actually ends up pissing us all off with his nonsense.
“What passengers want from their bus is a seat, but a modern one-person double decker has very few seats downstairs.”
…and what makes you an expert on ‘what passengers want’ Gilligan? You thought what London wanted was a comical bufoon for a mayor – how wrong you were..
“Enormous amounts of space are wasted,”
I think Mr G is referring to the space between his ears – the great vacumn of London where all manner of sense is sucked in – never to be seen again…
“particularly with the staircase, which TfL (unlike most other operators) insists must be straight.”
Oh – I see, it’s TFL’s fault for insisting on straight seats which is why the BorisMaster has so few of them. If only Londoners would revert to their crooked back ways and allow us to put them in hunchback seats then the BM would have a capacity of 64 seats.
I’m a better investigative journalist than Gilligan – at least I worked out that the extra stairs and doors would result in fewer seats – and I didn’t even get a ‘journo’s preview’.
Still, I suppose they will look nice as they cruise empty around the desolate ‘Olympic village’ in 2012 as the Londoners wonder ‘where it all went wrong’ and why electing “some bufoon off the telly” is only funny for a short time and then it becomes serious.
How does 25 standing passengers square with the “uniformed presence”? RM standing passengers were limited to 5 to allow the conductor to circulate.
25 seems rather a lot, considering there’ll be three doorways and two staircases for them to obstruct, apart from the assumption that, as with the RM, passengers will not be permitted to travel on the platform.
Spot on! It’s good how little we hear from Gilligan these days.
More outrageous still, is Boris’ slavish defence of ‘the market’ every 10 seconds too. He doesn’t understand (and never will) the point of public transport is – to get people from A to B, and not to be something aesthetically pleasing to passing 4×4 drivers!
http://etonmess.blogspot.com/
… I just made the cardinal sin of reading Gilligan’s piece that you linked to above… couldn’t face registering with the Torygraph to comment, so I’ll do it here instead:
The point of three doors and two staircases is the same reason why plenty of bus passengers like the bendy bus – it’s so you can get on the thing, and get on it quickly.
Who hasn’t taken a regular double decker at rush hour and:
a) Has been stuck for ages waiting for people to slowly file on and off the solitary door and solitary staircase
and
b) Has watched from a bus stop as double deckers sail past that are full downstairs but empty upstairs, as everyone bunches there and the driver can’t be bothered forcing them upstairs.
…but I suppose practical considerations like that aren’t something Gilligan cares about. My guess is Boris didn’t either – was probably TfL explaining it to him slowly.
Hey ive got an idea. why dont they take the top floor of the routemaster and put it and the back of the bus, then the stair wells could be replaced with more seats….
then again that would be a bendy bus wouldnt it
I wish i was good at graphics, i would mock up a routemasterfied Bendy bus, complete with a third open platform.
Mike
“b) Has watched from a bus stop as double deckers sail past that are full downstairs but empty upstairs, as everyone bunches there and the driver can’t be bothered forcing them upstairs.”
I completely agree – remember when they had conductors who shouted ‘more room upstairs’ – I wonder how many ‘inefficient’ half filled buses there have been in rush hour since they got rid of the conductor – and as a result how those costs compare.
[...] for…well, that could otherwise be used rather than pissed away on content-free curlicues. As pointed out here, the new bus has fewer seats downstairs than a Routemaster despite being 3 metres longer. I thought [...]
‘Well, 22 lower saloon seats is far fewer than the Routemaster in a bus two metres longer and also fewer than any ‘modern bus’ Andy might have experienced lately manages, again in rather less length.’
Might that be because of the centrally-located open space for wheelchairs and prams? But I’d like to know why the wheels on the final design are so far behind the nose.
The wheel arches hoover up a huge amount of ground floor space. Hopefully, I can blag a trip to Wrightbus to do a properly detailed story and find out why…
Still, with today’s second and final warning from the EU about particulate pollution, an electrically-powered bus with a much more modern entry and exit layout is even more relevant.
(Amusingly, this pollution warning has occurred under the C-Charge and LEZ regime put in place by old Spart himself. Boris has done nothing – so far – to change it….)