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Boris Johnson's Routemasters branded a waste of money at £7.8m for five buses
Pippa Crerar, City Hall Editor28 Apr 2010
The bill for Boris Johnson's new generation of Routemasters has come in at £7.8 million for just five buses, it emerged today.
Transport for London said the initial outlay included design and development costs, covering all research, prototypes and testing.
Critics suggested the “hop-on, hop-off” vehicles, which were a key mayoral election pledge and were intended to replace the scrapped bendy buses, were a waste of money.
No decision has been made on additional orders. If more are commissioned, the cost could come down significantly. A conventional double-decker costs £190,000 to build.
TfL sources said they anticipated “at least a couple of hundred” new hybrid Routemasters on the roads in the next few years.
Mr Johnson wanted to find a design based on the original red buses that served the capital for 50 years until they were withdrawn by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, in 2005 as they were inaccessible to wheelchairs and pushchairs.
The Mayor chose a blueprint by car-maker Aston Martin and architects Foster & Partners, with wooden floors, a glazed roof with solar cells and a rear platform.
This was shelved last year and the contract to create a “21st-century icon” for London went to Wrightbus which will design, test and build five new buses by 2012.
Each will have three entrances, including a “hop-on, hop-off” platform and two internal staircases, and will carry 87 passengers.
Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting, said: “This is an extraordinary and wasteful amount to spend when fares are rising and important services like ticket offices are being cut. More than £1 million on each bus, replacing completely serviceable buses just based on the design, is a poor choice of priorities.”
A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “The project represents good value for money in terms of fuel economy and lower emissions. TfL's investment covers all research and development costs, prototypes, rigorous testing and five vehicles. We expect to have hundreds of these bespoke hybrid vehicles on our streets in years to come.”
TfL commissioner Peter Hendy said the start-up cost would be spread across “hundreds” of new vehicles, and the final cost of a Routemaster is expected to be “comparable with a standard double-deck hybrid”.
Reader views (31)
The ONLY purpose whatsoever in spending all that money is to have an up-to-date "routemaster" is to REMOVE THE DOORS on the bus which prevent easy access to passengers. They haven't properly explained how the hop-on-hop-off platform is going to work.
Are there going to be doors on the bus and are they going to be closed between stops?
- Nicky, London, 02/09/2010 00:36
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So PETER, London; remind us, when did Blob-a-job scrap the western extension zone exactly? Keeping his word is he? What planet are you on?
- Blobby Johnson's blubbery belly, Oval, 29/04/2010 00:40
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"Do not forget Boris was electd to get rid of bendy buses and Western charge,"
If we're being selective he was also elected to chair the MPA, bring in later tube opening hours, reintroduce tidal flow in the Blackwall Tunnel, build three more rape crisis centres, bring in a no-strike agreement with tube unions and reverse tube ticket office closures. 'Boris is the man who keeps his word' is not really a tenable argument for the fellow at present.
- Tom, London, UK, 28/04/2010 21:31
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Dear God and intelligent London Electorate....please, please rid us of the plague that is bumbling, buffoon Boris. He has no idea what the real issues are for Londoners or how to effectively cut waste.
Boris and TfL have wasted millions, cut off most of South London by organising road works on major bridges and now wishes to squander tax payers money even further by scrapping bendy buses for no other reason than he doesnt like them.
I agree with Blobby Johnson, we got what we asked for (although I didnt want him because I knew his lack of understanding of local issues, i.e. London issues would be a recipe for disaster).
I cannot bear that for Boris, its about the next photo-opportunity, not whats best for London. Surely Londoners deserve better?
Bring back Ken....all is well and truly forgiven!!
- SJ, London, 28/04/2010 20:10
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Do not forget Boris was electd to get rid of bendy buses and Western charge, he is keeping his word unlike many politicians,also we had to get rid of the great Ken, we could not afford his trips around the world!
- PETER, london, 28/04/2010 19:25
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Do not forget Boris was electd to get rid of bendy buses and Western charge, he is keeping his word unlike many politicians,also we had to get rid of the great Ken, we could not afford his trips around the world!
- PETER, london, 28/04/2010 19:23
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okay folks - today's challenge is to spot how many of the comments are posted by ex-ken supporters and how many by current GLA staff pro Boris..... On your marks get set count - I can spot at least one of each.
- jc, se1, 28/04/2010 18:27
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There was nothing wrong with bendy buses, but our incompetent mayor is only in the job to line his own pockets and resurrect his childhood love of Routemasters at any cost (such as cancelling any useful transport projects).
Well done fools for voting him in, you have demonstrated your stupidity with flying colours, and at the end of his term he'll probably be £500,000 richer thanks to you.
- Blobby Johnson's blubbery belly, Oval, 28/04/2010 17:02
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Existing designs is exactly the problem.
- Frank, Home Counties, England, 28/04/2010 16:44
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Oh look, here's a story for 'scotty'!
Yes, the old chap that spells his own name without a capital letter, and starts most of his sentences without them too!
- Anon, London, 28/04/2010 16:29
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The Saga of 'NEW' ROUTEMASTERS,
Is Part of the mess BORIS JOHNSON has made, since taking-over power.
Mayor BORIS's FLIPPANT approach, has seen -
Millions wasted on Abandoning BENDY-BUSES;
£9 MILLIONS WASTED by Cancelling CROSS-RIVER TRAM;
and CLOSING extensive sections of SOUTH LONDON'S
Overground RAIL-LINES.
- TEDWARD HEATH, South-East , London, 28/04/2010 16:17
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"I’m sure even you won’t argue that the manufacturers will, upon receiving an order for several hundred new Routemasters, turn around and demand an additional payment for R&D."
That's hardly the point - the extra costs of the new bus policy don't end at the R&D. Boris's own consultants report on bus costs pointed out that the industry don't want the bus and Boris still hasn't made clear how the buses are to be funded nor on how much extra cost the operators will pile on to run them with two crew, which presumably all the nostalgia fans will be expecting.
They're designed to run crewed or uncrewed, but it's not entirely clear what the difference between an uncrewed Borismaster and a normal off-the-peg £250k hybrid would be, other than the BM being heavier and two years later onto the road, so you might as well buy the off-the-peg ones now and enjoy the scaling benefits of having a large fleet of the same design to maintain rather than a small expensive bespoke fleet.
If they are two-crew, the crewing costs will dwarf the R&D costs, of course - wages are around 60% of bus operating cost. If they're not two-crew, all the RM fans will be up in arms. All this was obvious in May 2008. There were 2500 Routemasters, after all, and now we're talking a 'couple of hundred' Borismasters. Someone needs to nail Boris down to specifics on costings and force him to cut the waffle and be accountable, like he said he would be.
- Tom, London, UK, 28/04/2010 15:37
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5? More like 25. There are loads of them trundling along Fleet Street.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 28/04/2010 15:31
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I hope that 'son of Routemaster' is an improvement on
the plastic junk-heaps that we have recently aquired
in East London. The seats are too narrow and too hard
and the ride feels as though the vehicle has square wheels. The air-conditioning unit is extremely noisy,
but at least it goes some way to drowning out the
female Dalek telling us VERY LOUDLY which bus we are on.
(these announcements are made *after* the bus has closed the doors and pulled away !) Also, just in case
anyone says "oh, it's to help blind people", most
blind people I have met resent being patronised and treated as imbeciles who don't understand public
transport.
Certainly the old RMs had to go, as babies buggies are
getting bigger and bigger and there would be no room for these truck-like sprog-carts, never mind the
actual passengers.
- TinyTim, Whats-a-bus-lane?,London, 28/04/2010 14:43
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Not a bad riposte Tom, I’ll give you that!
Anyway, I’m sure even you won’t argue that the manufacturers will, upon receiving an order for several hundred new Routemasters, turn around and demand an additional payment for R&D.
- ST, London, 28/04/2010 14:18
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Considering this was a ‘key Mayoral election pledge’ the groans around London should be very loud & rocking City Hall. Londoners were warned at being mad at Ken Livingston and we get all this waste…Well done Boris!
- James, London, 28/04/2010 13:43
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"Did the Anti-Boris brigade think it was going to cost nothing to develop this much-cherished icon of London?"
Actually we didn't, Boris did. He said so in September 2009 :
"I imagine the cost of the development of that new bus will be borne by the industry"
It's too easy, sometimes.
- Tom, London, UK, 28/04/2010 13:41
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R&D is the reason for the high cost. Perfectly understandable. When orders start flowing the cost will reduce considerably. New products launched are always more expensive at the beginning. For example,plasma tvs are now 50% cheaper than when originally introduced into the market.
- jaime gamell, Madrid, Spain, 28/04/2010 12:45
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The old Routemaster was indestructible; when they needed a complete overhaul, they were overhauled like new, very cheaply; I know this for a fact, I drove them, and an overhauled Routemaster was just like a new bus.
Those were the days of London Transport, when they knew their job, and what was needed to run London Transport; from training driver’s right down to timing bus routes and times at each bus stop etc.
But then Thatcher wiz kids came onto the scene and couldn’t leave London Transport alone; they had to destroy something that was never broken in the first place, like when they destroyed the GLC, only to eventually replace it with the GLA etc, now they want to bring back what they threw away with London Transport, and its Routemaster etc?
The older you get; the more you have seen it all before; and that is why History always repeats itself; the young wiz kids will always lack the wiser knowledge of the old, and that is always a very expensive mistake to make.
- mickinlondon, london, 28/04/2010 12:45
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"Fuel economy and lower emissions with hybrid vehicles?"
Mr. Khan's department (under the Green Bus Fund) recently gave Boris £5m for *50* new hybrid buses, of existing designs (based on paying the difference between a normal diesel and the hybrid equivalent). There's a TfL press release from the 29th March about it, go look it up.
Now Boris is spending twice that on five hybrids to an untried design. Who's the wally there? Who's making better use of taxpayer's money?
- Tom, London, UK, 28/04/2010 12:39
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Did the Anti-Boris brigade think it was going to cost nothing to develop this much-cherished icon of London?
- ST, London, 28/04/2010 12:35
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it's a shame Sadiq Khan is playing silly political games with this. London needs constant investment on buses and we need some serious thinking and ideas. A big problem with the bendy buses is that they are mostly for standing passengers and few seem to pay their fares because of the many doors and no conductor.
- East Londoner, London, 28/04/2010 12:25
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And to think that Boris talked about eliminating waste. What a complete farce.
- Mike, London, 28/04/2010 12:20
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Kerry maybe because the other option was Ken, Please dont tell me you prefered Ken.
I think the heading
"Ken Livingstone on why multiculturalism is the key to economic success and dynamism"
This showed why he didnt get the vote
- Dal, Bromley, 28/04/2010 12:20
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Fuel economy and lower emissions with hybrid vehicles?
Me thinks a certain Labour MP is very, very short sighted indeed. No surprise, cheap politics.
- Frank, Home Counties, England, 28/04/2010 12:18
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"There are still Routemasters going after 45 years of use. No other bus in London has lasted a third as long"
These aren't Routemasters, though, so the comparison is irrelevant. Although if you're advocating refitting existing buses instead of buying new ones, good, let's refit the bendies with hybrid drives. Should be cheaper.
"The development cost spread across a fleet for London is quite minimal."
They've only ordered five, though, and we've never been told how many they're going to order or, indeed, who's going to pay for them. The bus companies who usually buy or lease buses these days are adamant they don't want to buy them in the current financial climate and TfL are skint, as Boris keeps telling us. It's a crock of a policy based on misplaced nostalgia and economic idiocy, always has been.
- Tom, London, UK, 28/04/2010 12:17
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Can you *please* stop referring to Boris's new bus as a Routemaster. Despite the competitions he held to get people to design an updated Routemaster, the bus that Boris is putting £8m+ into will look nothing like a Routemaster, it will look a lot like the existing one-person operated double-deckers but with a platform at the back that will be open for *some* of the time on *some* journies to allow *some* people to jump on and off.
- David Potts, London,UK, 28/04/2010 12:16
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£7.8m to design, develop, research and prototype a new bus, including building 5 of them, seems like a very reasonable cost.
Granted if we're only ever to have 5 of them, it's a waste of money, but given the idea is to roll these out across London, it seems like a well managed and delivered project.
Looking forward to these becoming a future icon for London.
- Mark, London, 28/04/2010 12:13
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Well Tom, it made it this far because mad Boris will spend any amount of taxpayers money making ridiculous policies that will make him look good on the hustings.
Quite how a City with the stature and History as London posesses ever elected a buffoon like Boris I dodn't know. Dick Whittington he is not, Dick maybe.
- Kerry, Purley, 28/04/2010 11:48
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There are still Routemasters going after 45 years of use. No other bus in London has lasted a third as long. The development cost spread across a fleet for London is quite minimal. I can't see what the fuss is about. Sadiq Khan should look to Tooting Broadway Underground as his beloved bendy buses on rail replacement service are so long they can't stop outside without blocking the entire road junction.
- Jack Spratt, Richmond, Surrey, 28/04/2010 11:45
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Well done. Only been saying this for two years. Now let's have an investigation into how this pointless policy was cooked up and why it made it this far, eh?
- Tom, London, UK, 28/04/2010 11:29
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