First on board the Boris Bus: we review the new Routemaster

1/3
10 April 2012

Dark red walls, gold coloured handles and a creamy ceiling - if Farrow and Ball did public transportation it might look a bit like this. It comes as something of a surprise that the upper level doesn't have a homely AGA tucked away at the back, and the statutory blue labels indicating the wheelchair zone and a fine for standing on the upper level look like they were added on years after the bus was built by a careless owner.

Boris Buses - as the Mayor may or may not want us to call them depending on how these first eight prototypes fare on their Number 38 beat from Hackney to Victoria - have officially begun their trial and City Hall officials await the feedback of north London commuters.

The bus I rode on didn't have a conductor, which made it difficult to assess one of the key questions about Routemaster 2.0 - will the guys at the back be big enough to dissuade me from perpetrating the low-level yobbery that I had scheduled in for my evening commute? The question doesn't apply to the drunken weekend journeys I make on the night bus because - under current plans - conductors won't work after 9pm.

The materials look solid and reassuring - a few jabs at a vulnerable looking CCTV globule didn't result in any damage. The seats are fine, but not especially comfortable. The project's head honcho David Hampson-Ghani boasts that the whole rear end of the bus is made from an innovative lightweight material used in racing yahts and Formula One cars, although when I ask what it's called so I can buy some of my own, he says "I can't tell you the name, because it's embargoed" - by the Northern Irish manufacturers Wrightbus apparently.

He says "It's the most environmentally friendly bus in the UK, if not the world", although he slightly mumbled the world claim so something tells me it might be based on a quick Google search on his phone and there might have been a less polluting one built in Denmark in the sixties. "Compared to that bus there" Hampson-Ghani says, pointing accusingly at a double-decker that is overtaking us, "it is twice as fuel efficient".

They have tested it out for months with various transport groups and members of the public. "We've had overwhelmingly positive comments" says Hampson-Ghani "People have made small criticisms but no-one has said it is overwhelmingly rubbish".

Bringing these eight buses to the good people of Route 38 has cost the London taxpayer £7.8 million. "Don't divide £8 million by 8 and say they are one million each - it's the wrong maths" Hampson-Ghani instructs me impatiently, although if the public hate them and no big order is made or Ken wins and scuttles the project, it will be the correct maths. If big orders are made and the bus goes into commercial production, they say it will end up costing the same as the ones we have now - about £300,000 each. When the public have tried out the eight prototypes for four months, TfL hope to populate a whole route with them, which is 30-50 buses. Full roll-out comes later.

This is legacy-making, glacier style.

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