Personally, I like this bus. It combines the modern london bus designs with vintage design, and it's especially convenient because you don't necesarily have to wait at a bus stop in order to get on or off a bus, which makes travel in london a lot more efficient.
"And the seats are really squishy" nothing against the buses, I haven't personally been on one, but you're obviously gonna get positive comments from children.
@cambridgeecon according to another article, the cost for production versions will be circa 300k a pop. That's roughly the same as an off the peg hybrid double decker. Factor in the 15% fuel saving over current hybrid buses, over a typical 10 year lifespan its a bargain.
great thing about these buses is, you can run down the road after it & jump on at any time, you dont have to wait at bus stops, i remember the london buses like that back in the 90s.
In my experience the bendy buses were a nuisance from every angle. As a passenger you knew half the people weren't paying, they were slower and seemed to take longer to get going. They held up traffic (which includes other bendy buses). As a cyclist the bendy buses would come up my outside and really leave me feeling vulnerable and they would block you by being too long for you to go round at stops, pulling out when you're halfway along. A cyclist expends a lot of energy in stop start...
@ferranerazzi No i haven't asked them ! A survey carried out last year by a local cycling group and they showed motorists a replica sign and they asked them if they knew what it mean't, out of 100 drivers only 5 knew what the sign men't :(
@nickkomanz Nope, there are Oyster Card readers at every door, even the back, and during busy times apparently a community support police office may be at the rear of the bus :)
was pretty excited when they started to deploy the bus on my route but its getting annoying that i have to practically travel by the new 'sauna'-master in the coming sunny days to work. airless air conditioners with no windows that you can open, what a major flaw! ive also realise that the leg room is smaller. its nothing more than an eye-candy. boris is a coconut to waste so much money to make us suffer.
£300,000 being moved to a different place in the UK is much less bad than £200,000 completely going out the country (to Germany or another major 'bus exporter' (not that I have anything against other countries; I just think it's important for us to be more independent))
The old Routemaster was an icon of its day. This bus is as querky & eccentric as the mayor; hopping on & off at unrecognised stops in moving traffic? He must have some clout to persuade Health & Safety to turn a blind eye to that! I think someone was on a bit of a London-town ego-trip when he came up with this idea. Thankfully we won't be seeing it anywhere else in UK.
After 2 years you wont complaining anymore.. Be glad that Youre country still advcances in innovation and ideas. We, The Dutch get The Superbus in 2015, and that will also change alot of things in quick transporting options rather than a normal bus..
@sp1midholm I remember seeing in my youth a smartly dressed chap nonchalantly step off the bus between stops. He misjudged the speed and his face hit the pavement quite hard. I don't see the advantage of the platform. It costs almost twice as much to run the bus, there are three doors already so people can get on and off very quickly.
This is just a modern bus with no door on the back and costing a fortune. But it is london (aka centre of the known universe) so the rest of the UK will be subsidising this folly
What's to stop people jumping on and off that open back at other than proper stops and into the path of moving traffic. It's a safety nightmare. In Manchester - and I'm sure we're not alone - it is strictly forbidden for the driver to open the doors except at a bus-stop and for very good reasons. Traffic today is far denser than when we last used open back buses up here forty years ago. It looks like an ugly, potentially dangerous and expensive ego-trip for an eccentric dreamer of a city mayor.
@adotful Open rear-platform buses ran in London for over 100 years. Why should people fall off now, when there were hardly any reports of this happening years ago?
Bring back the bus conductor to make it faster and safer. The bus would spend less time at stops hold up traffic less, we would need less buses as they take less time to do the route, less chance of the driver being distracted so less accidence, someone to help with passenger safety and make sure every one pays.
At 1:25 there is a red sign that says ''NARROW LANES DO NOT OVERTAKE CYCLISTS'' its surprising and shocking that 95% of motorists think this is a warning to cyclists NOT to overtake vehicles ! This sign is aimed at the motorist not the cyclist. This sign is telling vehicle drivers NOT to overtake cyclists in narrow area's of road.
@colcfc123 Bendy buses were not popular, especially with the poor sods like me that had to use them. There were so few seats that most had to stand, in rush hour it was akin to cattle trucks and they had a tendency to burst into flames. It was also too big for its boots, kind of like what Ken became in the end, a bitter old crony only interested in slush funds for himself and his hangers on buddies. No more trips to Nigerian 5 star Hotel resorts courtesy of Ken. Boo Hoo.
£10Mil for 8 buses including research and development isn't actually that expensive. Regular modern buses cost a good £50k minimum, so yes you could get 12 more, but at least these are being build in Britain. I'm not just defending Johnson I think he's a bit of a knob but if it is providing more jobs that can only be a good thing. End of the day the only way for the country to get out of financial dire straight is to reduce unemployment, spending money brings benefits in the long term!
Looks nice but won't stop the fare-dodging there was on the bendy-buses. I'd have preferred the money to go on the cross-river tram Boris stupidly cancelled.
@sp1midholm Probably the nowadays "average highly fucked up citizens of London" should fall off more than in the past because of their "I'm in a hurry for business/I care only about myself/I'm very drunk or high" attitude. Which is a lot different attitude than the english gentleman of the past, who jumps carefully to the back of a bus, holding his newspaper and umbrella.
@StikManJones Don't worry the "lower classes, blacks etc" will continue to avoid paying as they did on the "Free" London "Bendy-Buses" sadly missed by all those who preferred NOT to pay....
What a load of crap, nobody is going to care as they sit in the same traffic jams thinking about how expensive and rubbish public transport is in the UK.
