Boris's 'New Bus 4 London' Splits Opinion

The 'New Bus 4 London' – or the Borismaster as everyone seems intent on calling it - assumed centre stage in the media this week following its long-awaited introduction to London's streets.

So far, the jury seems split, and largely along political lines.

There was cautious praise for the new vehicle in Dave Hill's London blog in The Guardian on Monday, who mentioned its stylish though slightly cramped interior and its smooth ride. He also mentioned its struggling air conditioning, though this might have been less to do with the press of reporters and film crews thronging the huge double decker than the hordes of breathless bus enthusiasts mingling with them.

A piece on local BBC News carefully represented the views of both Transport for London, who as you would imagine are strongly pro, and everyone else, who it appear to be strongly against. The lines of argument are clear.

One is the sheer cost of the New Bus 4 London programme. One protester reckoned that 96 new low-carbon hybrid buses could have been acquired for the cost of just these eight new buses. And presumably they would not have been halted in Islington by a 'software hitch' as the bus the BBC was travelling on was. They had to lock down the open platform of the vehicle to get the thing running again.

By this time, of course, the new bus had been dogged every step of the way by an old-fashioned 1960's Routemaster hired by the protest group Sack Boris. They commanded a fair degree of media attention, too, especially as their bus seemed to be filled with people who were only too keen to let the media know just what a waste of money the whole New Bus 4 London was.

However, most had already been beaten to the punch. Labour MP for Tottenham David Lammy had already written an open letter to the Mayor of London to complain that each new bus costs £1.4m compared to the roughly £190,000 cost of a conventional double-decker, leading him to an entertaining conclusion.

"With 62 seats at a cost of £1.4m, the cost per seat is £22,580, “ he said. “At £22,695, you can buy a brand new 3 series BMW!"

“Riding this bus is surely the most expensive bus ticket in history," he concluded.

Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones raised the issue of vehicle cost in a different way, though, questioning whether London bus operators would refuse to buy such an expensive vehicle especially as there was serious doubt whether there was an after-market for second hand Borismasters either here or abroad.

Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Lib Dems on the London Assembly, put it all into perspective when she said: "What Boris Johnson has managed to achieve is to hike up the cost of a single bus fare by 50% and ensure that buses on routes across London are far more crowded.

"A single new bus which has cost Londoners' a fortune will not cover up Boris Johnson's real record on bus services."

TfL admitted that the new bus cost a lot to develop but that subsequent vehicles would be much cheaper particularly if they were ordered in any quantity - which is probably true. However, that assumes there will be a great many of them ordered by bus operators, and so far that is uncertain.

Whatever you think of the new bus – and there's no denying its glamourous good looks and, if it works and continues to work, its practicality for London – there's every chance that it won't be Boris Johnson's delivering on a promise to rid the city of bendy-buses and resurrect the Routemaster that will determine whether Boris - or his 'Borismaster' - survives beyond this May's Mayoral elections.

It will be his record on public transport generally.

San Francisco Enlists Buses For Traffic Enforcement

Our colleagues in America appear to have hit on a new way of keeping cars out of bus lanes.

I'm told that San Francisco's Muni bus system has recently equipped 30 of its buses with forward-facing cameras so they can take photos of vehicles illegally travelling along or parking in the city's bus lanes.

John Haley, transit director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, reckons that the new cameras have transformed driver behaviour. “When cars see a bus coming, they get the hell out of the way now,” he says.

“Fifteen months from now, all of Muni's 819 buses will be equipped with the cameras. Drivers caught on tape violating the bus lanes will be subject to fines of up to $115. “

That's going to concentrate a few Californian minds.

Of course, forward-facing cameras are certainly not new on British inner-city buses, but I'm not sure anyone has thought of using them as a traffic enforcement tool. You could see how they could be useful in Central London, for example, though I doubt whether evidence derived from a camera mounted on the front of a bus would be admissible in a British Magistrate's court.

This might be a good thing, however. John Haley freely admits that with all these cameras at his disposal, he's starting to get a lot of experience with cameras.

“With all the footage, I'm starting to feel a bit like Cecil B. Demille," he gloats.

Ready for your close up, Mr Mayor?

Huge Demand For Four-Hour 'Day Trip From Hell'

The Daily Mail rightly called it the 'day trip from hell' – but it seems coach tourists just can't get enough of it.

Now, such has been the demand for tickets that bus and coach operator Brighton and Hove have had to put more dates on what is possibly the oddest day trip of them all.

Described on the Brighton and Hove website as a day trip “...designed for lovers of modern coach travel”, their M25 coach tours have proved so popular that they had to add two further dates. That's right, a coach tour around the M25.

The company freely admits that London's infamous orbital motorway has been named the least entertaining and most boring road in Britain, and the most hated place in Britain as voted by BBC Radio 4 listeners, who presumably know a truly hateful road when they see one.

But, says the company's website, “Let us try to prove these judgements wrong with a “flight of fancy” around the London Orbital”. Oh, let's not...

It's a big ask. Highlights of the tour will include visits to Heathrow Airport’s Terminal Five, the Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex and the Dartford River Crossing. And then there's the new services being built at Cobham in Surrey complete with a McDonald’s, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and a Shell garage.

At £15-per-head, I'm amazed that Brighton and Hove are able to shift any tickets. Yet apparently they are having to beat customers off with sticks.

The obvious question, of course, is not 'will you be calling a South Mimms' but rather more simply – why?

I've been thinking about this and perhaps it's the all-pervading sense of mystery and suspense. For example, each trip is set to begin with the toss of a coin to determine exactly which way around the motorway the coach will travel, and hey, it doesn't come much more exciting than that.

In addition, although the trip is only meant to last four hours (only?), given the number of traffic jams and bottlenecks generally encountered en route, who knows how long it will take. See what I mean about suspense? I mean, is there a toilet on board?

And if that's not enough for you, then what about the nail-biting competition in which passengers are invited to 'guestimate' to the nearest mile the total distance the coach will travel around the M25, with a bottle of Champagne for the person guessing the closest. And, in the event of a tie, the winner will be drawn from a hat! Oh, still my beating heart!

There's even an entertaining commentary by the co-driver who will regularly regurgitate 'interesting facts' about the M25's evolution as you travel.

I've just checked today's date and no, it's not April 1, so I suppose all this must be true. Could this be the most ironic bus tour in history? Or was it just a bet which some transport manager got terribly, terribly wrong?

South Mimms, anyone?

Bus Lane Scrapped After 5,600 Motorists Fined

Fining motorists for illegally using bus lanes when they shouldn't clearly doesn't work, if the evidence of Stoke-on-Trent City Council is anything to go by.

Despite issuing a blizzard of £60 fines to errant motorists, the 20-metre bus lane in Huntbach Street in Hanley continues to be used as a shortcut to car parks on a regular basis.

Did I say blizzard? Let me be more precise – 5,600 tickets have so far been handed out to people, more than half of which have been issued since April 1.

What it lacks in stature – it's little more than 60 feet long - it clearly makes up for in sheer desirability. Using it gives prompt though illegal access to nearby car parks. Stay on the right side of the law, however, and you are rewarded with an epic 1.3-mile detour. You can see why some of the 5,600 motorists caught breaking the law were prepared to take the risk.

Now, it seems, everyone has become fed up with it all.

"We are currently consulting with the public on plans to amend bus routes in the city centre in preparation for the opening of the new bus station in the autumn,” explained Councillor Adrian Knapper, the city council's cabinet member for transport and planning.

"It is proposed that the amended bus routes will no longer be using Town Road, and as a consequence, will not be accessing Huntbach Street,” he told local reporters.

"With this in mind, it is proposed to remove the existing bus lane and open the street to all traffic.”

A blessed relief, then – and at least the town is getting a new bus station. But as ever it's not all good news for the motorist.

As part of the council's proposals, some roads will now be pedestrianised while others will become one-way, still more will remain one-way but have their direction reversed, and yet more roads will become two-way.

Now, some hapless motorist is bound to get that wrong.

Makes you wonder why they don't just all go by bus...

Bus Company Celebrates High Fuel Prices

And now, at long last, perhaps some good news for bus companies.

Amidst all the anger about service reductions, disquiet about subsidy cuts, deeply unpopular fare rises and the like, here's a sign that things might not be quite so bad after all.

Derbyshire-based operator Trent Barton reckons that the high cost of fuel is something to be pleased about after all because it's driving ever greater numbers of motorists out of their cars and onto public transport. Well, on to Trent Barton buses, anyway.

When the company carried out customer surveys recently they were delighted to discover that around three-quarters of those they questioned had said that travelling by bus is now cheaper than using a car. 


The company’s commercial director Alex Hornby believes the cost of motoring is troubling people more and more. On some routes, he said, 78 per cent of customers had said they had saved money by taking the bus rather than going by car.

Across their entire network, he added, some 70 per cent of those surveyed said that bus fares offered good value for money.

Good for Trent Barton, I say. On the evidence of this, I'd say they were definitely a 'Glass Half Full' company. The trick, of course, will be to hang onto those extra passengers once everyone has grown accustomed to paying £1.50 for a cup of diesel

Still, it's good to hear to someone being positive for a change.

Calls To Axe Free OAP Bus Travel

The variously centre-right and centre-left policy think tank The Social Market Foundation has said that pensioners should be stripped of their rights to free bus travel as part of a plan to save £15 billion and boost the economy.

The estimated £1 billion annual cost of concessionary travel passes for OAPs was a low-priority item of spending, they said, and it did nothing to improve the economy. It should be scrapped, they concluded.

The foundation – which was known to be John Major's favourite think tank - also suggested taking away winter fuel payments and free television licences from better-off pensioners.

This and other mildly inflammatory ideas – such as barring savers from keeping more than £15,000 of savings in ISAs, means-testing child benefits and halving tax relief for pensioners – would deliver, they said, the extra £15bn of savings the government have only just now realised they will have to find in 2016.

"Our plan would unambiguously strengthen the Government's deficit cutting credibility and increase economic output without borrowing a penny more,” they said. “That would go a long way towards reassuring the holders of UK Government debt.”

How lovely. I doubt whether the holders of UK personal debt would be terribly reassured, though, or their retired parents.

And am I the only person to spot that the Social Market Foundation's plans seem to be very much based on penalising elderly voters?

Honestly. Anyone would think that they were deliberately courting publicity...

Boris' New Bus for London Delayed

Looks like we'll all have to wait a bit longer for the much-vaunted 'Borismaster' to hit the streets of London – it's introduction, I discover, has been delayed.

After announcing with much excitement two months ago that the Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s “Routemasters for the 21^st Century” would enter service on Monday 20 February, Transport for London has announced that is has had to delay their introduction by a week.

Apparently, certification of the new vehicles has taken a bit longer than expected.


The first Borismasters, as they are widely referred to, are now due to enter service on 27 February at the hands of Arriva London on their route 38.

Dismissed as an irrelevant vanity project by the Mayor's political opponents, it is understood that the cost of the project so far - design and development, and the building of eight prototype vehicles by Wrightbus of Northern Ireland – stands at more than £11.3m even before a wheel has turned.

What distinguishes the Borismaster from other hybrid buses is that it has no less than three doors, which is a first for a British double-deck bus. It sounds complicated but its intended to allow people to board and dismount relatively quickly. However, the downside – and in cost terms, it's a serious one - is that the bus will generally need a two-person crew.


Of course, we don't yet know whether the Borismaster concept will actually work, but the first few months of trials should quickly establish that. Even if it does work, there's been no indication yet of the likely on-the-road cost of these elegant though slightly bizarre vehicles. My bet is that they will prove so expensive and uniquely-engineered that no other operator will touch them.

If that is the case, then this will be history repeating itself. The original Routemaster, remember, was only ever bought by London Transport (who also designed it) except for a small number of forward entrance vehicles sold to Northern General Transport. In later years, cast-off's found work throughout the country but the forecourt and running costs of the originals were just too high, I'm told, and they were never widely adopted.

And then, of course, there's the cost of that extra crew member to factor in...

I doubt whether we'll see huge numbers of Borismasters on Britain's streets in the years to come.