46 The London Bus
C
ontracts to
operate London’s
bus routes are
awarded for
between five
and seven years, but the buses
operated on them are usually
kept for between 10 and 14
years, sometimes longer and to
keep them up to date they will
usually be refurbished at least
once during their life in London.
Why not replace them all when
the contracts end? Consider the
sums of money involved and
where it must come from.
Running London’s bus network
costs around £2.1billion per year
with the vast majority of that
money going to the operators
of its 700 or so routes. Fares
income is just under £1.5billion
per year and this gap used to be
met through an operating grant— in effect a subsidy — from
central government.
This has been steadily reducing
in recent years and ended from
the start of the 2018/19 financial
year.
This means that London is now
the only major western city that
provides a bus service without
any form of public subsidy. It has
been estimated that the impact
of the mayor’s fares freeze and
the Hoppa fare, which allows
passengers to make unlimited
bus journeys within an hour,
could be up to £700million over
the next four years.
In a typical year, between 15%
and 20% of the bus network
is subject to retendering. The
default position for new contracts
is that they will be based upon
new vehicles, but alternative bids
based upon existing vehiclesmay also be made, provided they
are refurbished in accordance
with Transport for London’s
standards.
The mayor has committed
operators to ensuring that all
new double-deckers used on
Transport for London services
from 2018 are hybrids and all
buses in the proposed ultra-low
emission zone (ULEZ) will either
be hybrid or zero emission.
A new London double-decker
can cost up to £290,000, but a
five-year-old one already in the
fleet is worth about £75,000,
so there are clear financial
advantages in using older
vehicles on routes that do not
pass into the ULEZ.
London’s buses are intensively
used and over five years a bus
could well carry over 1million
passengers.Modernising London’s buses
ABOVE: Vehicles
refurbished in 2018
for new contracts
include Arriva
London North
DW295, a Wright
Gemini 2DL new
in 2011, operating
route 221 at
New Southgate.
RICHARD GODFREY
Looking good as new
Specialist companies keep London buses up the latest standards by
refurbishing their bodywork and reducing their exhaust emissions