New Bus For London Design Unveiled

By · May 17, 2010 at 11:30 am · 26 Comments · Latest News · Report an error ·

newbusdesign_170510.jpg

Boris Johnson unveiled the new Bus for London this morning. This is it. To say the back end of the Wrightbus-designed vehicle looks like the back end of a bus is, we reckon, offensive to the back ends of buses – and the front isn’t much better. As promised, it has two staircases and three doors, including the much vaunted open rear platform (that will be closed when it’s quiet). Take a better look round in this video (so shiny!) then tell us what you think.

Image copyright TfL

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  • M@

    I can’t say I approve of the decision behind it, but I do really like the new design. Curvy, sleek, and not so much like the Alien as I originally thought.
    http://londonist.com/2008/12/alien_versus_routemaster.php

    • http://twitter.com/bagelmouse RachelH

      Alien! *slaps forehead* That’s what it reminded me of. That, or a dodgy superhero costume.

      I actually don’t like the way there’s no window at the back of the top deck. And it’s too curvy – feels like it’s trying too hard to be modern, rather than ‘iconic’.

  • http://undefined sinisterpictures

    Hmmm,estimated cost of £200,000 per bus, probably bung another £50k onto that by time the production run starts.

    I’ll believe it when I see it on the streets.

  • http://undefined BraveNewMalden

    I like the design of the bus. The glass-walled staircase is a brilliant innocation. And I like the Look Around You music on the video.

  • http://undefined Steve

    I’m sure I saw that on the 427 route a few weeks back. Looked really nice from the glimpse I got.

    • http://undefined sinisterpictures

      I don’t think there’s a hard copy of this vehicle in existence yet, just a mock up.

  • http://buglarsblog.tumblr.com/ Buglar

    Setting aside logic and reason regarding the costing and need for this, I think it looks cracking aside from the lack of a rear window… or is there some sort of space age see-through thing going on back there?

  • http://undefined SebBrennan

    Needs a back window, and needs a smiley face on the front. And will the inside look like an overlit swimming pool with nasty plastic seats?

    Whatever, I’ll forgive it as long as it’s quieter than the current leviathans that shake my flat to its foundations every 3-4 minutes.

    • http://undefined AdrienneCooper

      If there’s a rear staircase, what benefit would there be from a rear window? No one is going to be looking out of it anyway.

      • http://twitter.com/bagelmouse RachelH

        I hadn’t considered that, but it raises another question. If the front staircase has so much light, why does the back staircase seem so dim and dingy, particularly when it looks like it’s steeper?

        • http://undefined AdrienneCooper

          It does look steeper, doesn’t it. Which would make sense as the bus probably isn’t as wide as the length of the front staircase.

          People used to regularly fall off the back of Routemasters. Back when I worked at TfL we did hear also hear of the occasional instance of someone falling down the stairs then straight off the platform. I was hoping that the platform wouldn’t open directly in front of the stairs but it looks as if it will. That could be considered something of a health and safety oversight.

          • http://undefined SebBrennan

            I don’t think it’s steeper, it’s just that it corkscrews round, whereas the front staircase is straight, like on modern buses. I hate straight staircases, when you’re going up them the driver accelerates away from the stop and you have to cling on for dear life, on the way down he stands on the brakes and you fall headlong down them. At least with curvy steps you generally get stuck halfway down.

      • http://undefined SebBrennan

        @AdrienneCooper: the point of the rear window is to see what’s behind you! Back before the Routemasters went, I used to slice about 10 minutes off my journey from Battersea to Lords, by keeping an eye on what number bus was behind mine. I could pretty much always change from 19 to 137 in the traffic snarl up at Sloane St, 137 to 13 at Marble Arch, and hop off outside my office at the convenient traffic lights on Park Road. No waiting, no queuing- excellent.

  • http://undefined Slabman

    Aesthetics aside, restricting all double-decker purchases to a single supplier will cost more than competitively tendering among different suppliers.
    Going back to aesthetics, it looks more like an AEC trolleybus than a RouteMaster. Since trolleybuses are the greenest form of public transport, why not go the whole hog and bring them back to London?

  • http://undefined AdrienneCooper

    The cynic in me is grudgingly impressed with the concept.

    More glass is a good thing (though I’m unconvinced that people will be looking out while on the stairwell), being able to close the rear door makes all the difference. The rear stairwell means that the engine can be slightly relocated so as to be under the stairwell, meaning that there should be no raised floor area – making the bus even more accessible.

    One stairwell up, one stairwell down would be nice, though I suspect that that isn’t overly feasible in practice.

    I presume you won’t have to pay/swipe your oyster with the conductor during the day and that there will surely still be oyster points at each door.

    I hope that the seating layout is being more carefully considered than usual though. The rear-facing seats are horrible – they’re both physically and socially awkward. If there isn’t room for an extra row of seats, let’s just leave them out and have an extra metre of standing room downstairs and give the upper seats an extra couple of centimetres leg room. Spending a journey trying to not stare your fellow passenger in the face while also trying to not knock your knees together isn’t pleasant, and the rear-facing seats aren’t the best for anyone that suffers motion-sickness either.

  • http://undefined jamesu

    Like M@tt – Can’t approve of the economics off it, but I do like it alot. Nice work.

    It looks like a fresh new idea, not the pastiche I feared, and it also isn’t so over the top to be completely mad.

    With three doors and two staircases it should hoover up crowds (so long as there is plenty of standing room downstairs – always the RM’s weakest point.

    If it could be sold abroad sufficiently, and elsewhere in the UK, to bring the cost down…

    • http://undefined AdrienneCooper

      Yeah, what’s with the ‘I can categorically state that you will not see this bus in service elsewhere’ rubbish? What do I care if other cities want to have the same buses as London? The quickest way to bring the cost per bus down will be to make more of them.

  • http://undefined newmiyamoto

    I noticed how you skewed your post by including a rather dull 20 second vignette instead of the full announcement video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWckXHojurM ).

    A little less editorial and a bit more reporting please, thank you.

    • http://twitter.com/bagelmouse RachelH

      That longer video (which is embedded in the TfL page linked to within the post text) is advertising guff, and answers none of the questions being posed here.

      • http://undefined AdrienneCooper

        The only pertinent information the longer video adds is the capacity (89, as far as I can remember).

        What’s with the accusations of skewed reporting? The news article says ‘here’s a video of the new bus design’. There follows a video of the new bus design. What’s the problem? There isn’t a hint of bias in there.

  • http://undefined jasonmarkwebber
  • http://undefined office_howard

    my concerns, as a cyclist:

    * what does it smell like?
    * where do the exhaust fumes exit from?!

    and as a passenger,

    * what’s the leg-room like? some of the newer buses are quite comfortable, a pleasant change from some of the older more cramp examples..

  • http://undefined jamesu

    Cyclist raises a good point – with the back platform/door the way it is someone stepping off would be hard to see, emerging from behind the pillar, rather than on the wider open deck of the RM, which was hairy enough.

  • http://undefined Crouch End cat

    Maybe Ken ordered too many bendies but they were the cheapest and most economical form and furthermore are suited to a number of routes. So bring them back into service and bin Boris’s bus.Simply scandalous to see them rusting away in some yard while Transport for London still no doubt shelling out on them.With talk of the Bus Grant to be cut then it would be outrageous to see any more money poured down the swany on this silly Boris-master. Transport in London is never going to be either glamorous or comfortable so a basic reliable and servicable vehicle -that is suited to its routes as all that is needed.The bendy can fill that requirement on a fair number of routes in the capital. That way the fares are kept down. Provincial cities would then be more likely to buy up the remaining excess ones seeing that they are not simply rejected but are in fact in service. Selling them at a knockdown price to Malta is another no doubt bonkers idea from Boris. I’m not particularly a bendy lover but I really think a responsible Mayor would do all he could to keep the fares down -especially in the current economic climate.Boris is irresponsible in this respect. I rest my case.

  • Mehmet

    you lot should but the bendy buses back because it has three doors.

  • Darius Baird

    Darius Baird, Advocate for young people and trainee youth worker.

    I think the new routemaster represents a modern and diverse London. The routemaster adopts a fantastic concept, in which the architect and designer have made the edges of the bus appear curvier. This naturally looks very pleasing to the eye, rather than the great big shoe boxes on wheels we have at current.

    The windows around the bus look like a ‘suron’ wrapped around a really curvy lady.. this represents modern trends, style and sophistication.

    I do believe however, that the architect has tried a little too much to modernise the bus. A bus isn’t supposed to be iconic, its supposed to fit its purpose. Instead of trying to fit London around the bus, the bus needs to fit around London; and I believe this is where the architect and designer have gone wrong.
    I think the new routemaster will look slightly out of place on London’s streets.

    Fair enough, the designer wants the bus to look modern, sleek and attractive.. but even so it doesn’t show any real character, or any real feeling and therefore I do not think it is a ‘true’ representation of London.

    I think the bus is a fantastic model, but the architects and designers have tried a little too hard.

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