I
haven’t written any articles over the past week as I've been busy filming
London Transport services for my Dailymotion channel.
Here
is the news from LOTS (London Omnibus Traction Society)
·
The
New Addington service changes duly began as planned on Saturday 24th as
described in TLB613 page 12, with frequency increases on the 64, 130 and 359,
route extensions on 64, 353 and 359, withdrawal of T31/T32 and renumbering of
T33 to 433.
·
The
first two Metroline BYD electric double-decks were out in the past week, one at
the Busworld exhibition at Kortrijk in Belgium and the other at an event in
London on the 21st to coincide with the State Visit of the Chinese President.
·
The
three Enviro400-VE (virtual electric)
double-decks are due in London in the next week or so. Rather than going to Stagecoach as had been
planned initially, they will be delivered direct to Tower Transit at LI Garage
(fleet nos DH 38501/2/3), who will trial them soon.
·
Harlow
operators Townlink, Road Runner and Olympus are due to attend a Traffic
Commissioner’s Public Inquiry on 3rd November. Recent route withdrawals have
left them with the 19/20/21 (Harlow- Epping- Ongar- Warley), 524/A (Harlow-
Hertford) and T15 (Potter Street local).
·
Galleon
Travel (Trustybus) is acquiring eight Scania OmniCity single-decks formerly in
the Metrobus fleet on TfL route
358. The company is due to expand its
network with routes 419/420 (Harlow- Epping- Ongar) registered from 16th
November.
Interesting to see
that the world’s first battery/electric double deck bus has been demonstrated
at the exhibition in Belgium, (We are still waiting for those zero emission buses to enter service
though.) I believe it may operate on Route 98 according to this image.
Regarding
the Alexander Dennis Enviro400 Virtual Electric buses, Tower Transit is going
to be the first to operate them due to them winning the contract to operate
Route 69 which commences by 30th April 2016.
Townlink, Road Runner
and Olympus, the Harlow bus operating companies, have to attend a Traffic
Commissioner’s Public Inquiry on 3rd November,
according to the report I found from the ‘Notices and proceedings for the east of England’
page. For those of you interested in attending, the venue for the public
enquiry is to be held at The Court Room, Eastern Traffic Area, Eastbrook,
Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge, CB2 8BF.
Also, LOTS talk about the new tender awards
below.
Thursday 22 October
The
following TfL contracts have been announced:
Tranche 523
344
(24 hour) re-awarded to Abellio London with double deck, type to be confirmed,
PVR 25. Start date 20 August 2016
417
re-awarded to Arriva London South with existing Euro V diesel double deck, PVR 12. Start date 20
August 2016
Tranche 524
64
awarded to Arriva London South (currently Metrobus) with existing Euro V diesel
double deck, PVR 21 Start date 27 August 2016.
146
awarded to Stagecoach Selkent (currently Metrobus) with new Euro VI diesel
single deck, PVR 1. Start date 20 August 2016
336
awarded to Stagecoach Selkent (currenty Metrobus) with new Euro VI diesel
single deck, PVR 10 with frequency increase (current PVR 7). Start date 20
August 2016
Tranche 536A
618
(new school route) awarded to London Sovereign with existing Euro III and SCRT
diesel double deck, PVR 2. Start date 2 November
619
(new school route) awarded to London Sovereign with existing Euro III and SCRT
diesel double deck, PVR 1. Start date 2 November
All using diesel buses
which is not much of an improvement except for routes 146 and 336 which will
have Euro VI diesel single decker buses. The double deck type for route 344 is
still yet to be confirmed, it could be new or existing bus types from other
routes.
Looking at the board
papers for the October 22nd 2015 Surface Transport panel meeting.
There is one paper which talks about bus services for
Christmas day.
Background
3.1
The bus network in London operates throughout the year except Christmas Day.
Services finish at around midnight on Christmas Eve and start again at normal
Sunday times on Boxing Day.
3.2
Other cities in England and Wales also have no or very limited services on
Christmas day. Many of them also have very reduced service on Boxing Day
whereas in London a full Sunday service operates. This has been built up from a
much more limited service in recent years, responding to the growth in shopping
and other activities. Patronage on Boxing Day is around 3.2 million passengers,
or about 80 per cent of typical Sunday usage.
3.3
Internationally, a number of cities operate a Christmas Day service reflecting
higher levels of activity generally in many of them. Twelve of the 14 members
of the International Bus Benchmarking Group run either a Sunday service or a
special schedule which includes New York, Paris and Barcelona.
According to my
research, back in 1999, Metroline operated special services in
Central London which occurred on the 25th December.
Their
bus services in 1999 on Christmas Day were:
Route
714 from Earls Court Station via Gloucester Road, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park
Corner, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Strand, Aldwych, Holborn to
Russell Square.
Route
716 from Willesden Bus Garage via Cricklewood, Kilburn, Paddington, Marble
Arch, Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus to Trafalgar Square.
The operator did not
accept any London Transport ticketing as they were running a service
commercially.
So presently, many
people are used to cash free London buses and it would cause massive confusion
if bus operating companies started their own commercial service for Christmas
day.
Looking at the ‘Actions List’ board paper, at the bottom it
says: “Following the meeting, Charles
Belcher requested that Panel Members also be sent information on New
Routemaster batteries (attached a Appendix 2).”
So we may see more
about the batteries for the New Routemaster bus soon.
Going back to the
Townlink bus operator, I have recorded footage of their Route 21 service which
I travelled on from Brentwood to Epping, which goes via Ongar.
Route
21 Brentwood to Harlow via Epping Station, Essex
Operated
by Townlink Buses from Burnt Mill, Harlow depot
Dennis
Dart SLF Alexander ALX200 Y293FJN
Former
Stagecoach London 34293 for London Buses
Filmed
on 5th October 2015
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