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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.
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