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Accident figures aid Routemaster return
Martin Bentham30.06.08
Only two passengers have suffered accidents requiring medical treatment on London's two remaining Routemaster bus routes during the past three years.
The official figures show that during the same period, more than four million people travelled on the buses, giving an accident rate per passenger of only a fraction of one per cent.
Transport for London also admits there is no evidence that either accident was caused by the Routemaster "open platform" design, despite claims by critics that it is more dangerous than other buses'.
The disclosure will bolster calls for a return of the Routemaster and comes only days before Mayor Boris Johnson is to spell out details of how he hopes to bring back a new version of the bus.
Today's figures cover accidents between the start of 2005 and the end of March this year on two "Heritage Routes" - No 9 and No 15 - which continue to use Routemasters to carry passengers through central London. On the No 9, which runs from the Aldwych to the Royal Albert Hall and carries 600,000 passengers a year, there were six "boarding incidents" involving people falling or stumbling.
Two were deemed to be "major incidents" requiring hospital treatment. No further details of the injuries are given, although neither involved a fatality. In the other cases the passengers required no medical treatment.
The No 15, from Trafalgar Square to Tower Hill, which carries about 700,000 people a year, had just two accidents - one involved a passenger boarding as the bus was pulled away, the other a passenger alighting. Neither required treatment.
Former mayor Ken Livingstone asserted that as many as 10 people a year died getting on or off Routemasters.
Reader views (4)
All statistics can be made to look the way you would like to prove a certain point of view.
The heritage routes are very different to normal routes where passengers are rushing about to work, shopping, etc. This is when they might take risk to safe a few seconds and accidents happen! The issue is can TfL train staff to be professional in looking after passengers on the new routemaster and educate Londoners to respect the freedom, but the danger the open platform offers.
The original routemaster was built for a different time and society, I loved the bus and still do for the quality of design and modern technology (1950's/60's) that was lovingly put into the vehicle. It is still the most green bus (with a modern engine) on the road today, as it is so light (7.5 tons) compared to a modern double decker (11-13 tons - dependent on make and model). My question is why we cannot take the best features of the vehicle and evolve it into a modern vehicle which Londoners can be proud of and forget about wide dreams of open platforms, but perhaps have a conductor back to help the drivers at busy times of the day. The routemaster coaches had doors and were even to a higher specification, why not take these vehicles as a starting point.
- Gary Branch, Essex
It was Ken Livingstone who reportedly said in 2001 "Only some ghastly dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster"! And I've hated him ever since he about-faced and got rid of them - typical politician!
Let's hope Boris is as good as his word, and actually gets the Routemaster back on the streets of London, for which it was specifically designed - unlike those ridiculous self-igniting bendy buses.
- David Ward, Torquay, Devon
Just goes to prove that Ken Livingstone's statistics about platform accidents and fatalities on Routemasters were nothing more than fabrication. As a former Routemaster driver, I never had one platform accident and they were safe enough as long as they were operated by a professional and competent crew.
- Graham Laurie, Owner Of Preserved Routemaster Rml2271, Glasgow
Very interesting, but you should really be comparing the rates per vehicle kilometre for different types of bus. Reminds me of the league tables you published which showed which routes had most code reds - but they probably also had most mileage! If you don't make a sensible comparison, the raw figures tell us next to nothing.
- Michael, London, UK
