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The New Routemaster


DulwichFox

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New Routmaster


Each Bus costs ?1.4M ( Regular Double Decker ?190,000 )


?1,400,000


1 Oyster ticket ride = ?1.3p


?1,400,000 = 1,076,923 rides.


2,950 rides a day every day for 1 year


295 rides a day every day for 10 years


and that does not pay for Fuel and Maintenance, Insurance tax, Driver & Conductor pay.


Does this make commercial sence.


Fox.

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No sense whatsoever. It's a Boris vanity project.


The January 2012 Finance Committee papers note that final cost is expected to be ?11.065m, so with only nine on order the economy of scale is terrible and the revenue they pull in will be lower than that on normal double deckers due to increased fare evasion.


The delivery is running late, but the first two have been rushed into service because Boris isn't allowed to use them for political capital after 20 March for purdah reasons associated with May's election, so he's trying to make the best of it now.

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We all remember the old routemasters and previous buses.


People have always evaded fares on those buses.


Often conductors did not bother collecting fares especially at the end of their shifts.

ATT that was mainly due to them counting up their takings to save time when they got back to the garage.


Do not know if the new buses are Oyster only or conductors will collect money.


Fox.

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Saw one today at Victoria when I nipped out for lunch. I like it. I loved the old Routemaster for making London feel more special and unlike every other double-decker city in the world. I like this one for the same reason. It's still more or less a prototype so until we've got a sense of how many may be ordered so that the R&D costs can be offset and economies of scale reached, I don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss it out of hand for being a vanity project. However, if it does turn out to be a reliability, accident prone lemon and no more ever get ordered, then we may very well call it so in the future. I hope not though since it would be a pity that nothing else would every get through that would make London feel like a city where it's still possible to make obvious things like buses feel a little bit special.
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It's a reaction to the tabloidesque hatred of bendy buses. Complete unnecessary waste of cash.


Will be cool though.


May eat in to the ?300m profit that TFL are apparently making (can someone explain why fares need to go up when they are making such q big profit?).

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Funnily enough the old Routemaster was almost redudant the day it went into production. They had to stretch the original version and then when single operator buses came on the scene it appeared uncompetitive. They were phasing them out forty years before they actually ended, but I believe that their reliability and simplicity were their saving grace. From a time when bus operators manufactured their own vehciles. Now seems bizarre.


They were responsible for a disproportionate amount of pollution.


So Boris, for a clever bloke who plays the fool to his own advantage this self-indulgant pro-Daily Mail nonsense is so shallow,and just stinks of the poularist interventionist nonsense that is flavour of the day. 2 weekly bin collection out in the shires? Duh duh goes the game buzzer, central government must intervene. A free for all for the last Olympics tickets - a pain but relatively fair. Duh duh goes the game buzzer, we must give it to those poor souls who were unsuccessful in not one but two attempts, whether they went for one ticket or a 1000, central government must intevene.


I think I may have digressed a little. Clearly I am still angry at the toffs who could have spoiled Friday night at the Goose.

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I like 'em. And they're tailor-made for sponsorship...


http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-M1Aarcp7NeVWXuCm_r6j_FveM8pQhc7yawp6nUAuUbkwMWYZ = http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT3rPAt2_ie-AM3n6lg6Fp8KoKFPotdn5Pn-2GoTOc-QphwMGmKPA

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I think they look great, but hard to justify the expense of commissioning a bus specifically for London in these times of austerity. Obviously the cost per unit will come down over time, but it will always be a much more expensive option than a stock double-decker.
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Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It's a reaction to the tabloidesque hatred of

> bendy buses. Complete unnecessary waste of cash.

>

> Will be cool though.

>

> May eat in to the ?300m profit that TFL are

> apparently making (can someone explain why fares

> need to go up when they are making such q big

> profit?).


It won't eat into any of their profit. Cost will be passed on to the passengers. The right of companies to profit out of the provision of public services must and will be protected at all cost.

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This is of course the argument given to justify the astronomic costs.

Last I heard (or watched on inside london or whatever it's called) interest was next to nowt.


Agreed they are pretty though.

It does rather seem to be the job of government these days to piss good cash up the wall for the 'big idea'.


At least the bus is a great deal cheaper than the Olympics, or millennium tent, or NHS IT, or Aircraftless carriers, or Eurofighter or........(ad nauseum)

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It's unlikely to sell well across the globe.


To start with, there aren't that many places that use double deckers and critically very few of these places are right hand drive. This is critical because the bus is asymmetric with the open platform and staircase layout at the back dictating the engine location on the right. The result is it is very difficult and expensive to convert to left hand drive operation with the doors on the right compared to its competitors.

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I reckon Ireland would be the best bet EP, but they have a history of ordering from (successful) UK manufacturers that provide cheaper and greener buses than the new Routemaster.


I can't see the Japanese ordering UK manufacturered buses and India don't use double deckers widely. Hong Kong and Singapore might I suppose, but again if they can get cheaper, greener buses elsewhere it will need some selling to them.

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