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Near the bottom of a Transport for London (TfL) document about 200 more “New Routemaster” buses being bought to bring the total to 800 is a little bombshell called paragraph 4.7. It says the routes to be served by this next consignment of Wrightbus vehicles “will run entirely as One Person Operated (OPO).”
That means no new style conductors on board, which means there will be no open platform for passengers to “hop on” or “hop off” between stops, which means defining features of the bus - the very ones Boris Johnson has made the biggest noise about since he announced the “New Routemaster” project as part of his 2008 election bid - are now seriously endangered.
Conductors are already often notable by their absence among the 170-odd New Routemasters already in service. They disappeared from route 38 last summer and are not deployed on routes 8 and 148. The rear doors are routinely closed in the evenings and at weekends on other routes the bespoke vehicle serves.
The reason the next 200 buses will be OPO from the off is simple - a continuing lack of money. The luxury of having a second crew member aboard is one TfL can ill afford as it strains to find funds for a million and one more important things in a city that is growing at high speed. The open platform, which Johnson has hailed as freedom’s stout rebuke to health and safety nannyism, looks likely to become an increasingly scarce facility.
How well is the “Boris bus” matching up to the mayor’s other claims for it? His boasts that the bus would be significantly cleaner and greener than other hybrid technology models on London’s streets are being questioned by Green Party AM Darren Johnson, who, quoted by Mayorwatch, highlights the TfL paper’s admission (paragraph 3.9) that the next batch of New Routemasters will produce only marginally lower levels of nitrogen oxide and polluting particles (“particulate matter”) than the most modern, standard, less expensive equivalent buses. For the Lib Dems, Caroline Pidgeon says the money would have been better invested in buses that run entirely on electricity.
On the other hand, TfL maintains that the New Routemaster uses around half as much fuel as the buses it’s replaced and that it’s popular with passengers. The paper reveals that it is looking into concerns about high temperatures inside and lack of ventilation, but says that face to face interviews with 221 users of the new bus, conducted in June 2012, revealed that a majority found the vehicle quieter and more comfortable than conventional buses and offered a smoother ride, and that 35% of them “strongly liked the overall design and environment” of the bus, compared with just 11% who felt that way about other types of bus.
Myself, I’m still quite enamoured. Yes, the New Routemaster is a bit of a big beast, I wish its windows would open and I could do without the revivalist hype, but I still get a kick out off riding in one. The moquette is rich, the interior lighting moody after dark, the engine noise a seductive hum. It’s made a London bus journey something more than just a functional experience. Conductors or not, that’s worth quite a lot.
All previous installments of Boris’s Bus (A Political Journey) can be read here.
