New Bus for London

The New Bus for London, designed by Heatherwick Studio, is a planned 21st Century replacement of the iconic Routemaster as a bus built specifically for use in London. It is to be built by Wrightbus, and will feature the 'hop-on hop-off' rear open platform of the original Routemaster, but will meet the requirements for modern buses to be fully accessible, and will incorporate an electric hybrid driveline. A prototype is expected to be on the road by late 2011, with the first buses due to enter service in early 2012, in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

The original Routemaster was a standard London bus type with a rear open platform and crewed by both a driver and conductor. It was withdrawn from service (except for two Heritage Routes) at the end of 2005 by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, in favour of a fully accessible one person operated modern fleet, none of which feature a rear open platform. The withdrawal of the Routemaster became an issue of the 2008 London mayoral election, and the new Mayor Boris Johnson was subsequently elected Mayor pledging as part of his campaign to introduce a new Routemaster. Following an open design competition held during 2008, at the end of 2009 Wrightbus were awarded the contract to build the bus, announcing their final design in May 2010.

The design for the new bus features three doors and two staircases to be able to use a rear platform and allow accessible boarding. Unlike the original standard RM Routemaster used in central London, the new bus has a conventional flat front end and a rear platform that can be closed when not needed, rather than the protruding bonneted 'half cab' design and permanently open platform, to allow the bus to be operated by one driver in off peak times.

Bus transport framework in London
In common with the rest of Great Britain, the operation of public transport bus services were deregulated in 1986, meaning the majority of routes are now operated by private companies, with both timetabling, routes and vehicle policy decided by commercial factors.

The privatisation of London bus services however, was structured slightly differently, whereby private bus operators operate routes won on a commercial tender basis from London Transport (and its later successors), as the new government body responsible for the regulation of bus services in London.

On 4 May 2000 the office of Mayor of London was created, with more wide ranging powers over transport policy for London, who now implemented London wide transport policy through the Transport for London (TfL) executive agency.

Prior to 1986, there had developed a 'standard' London bus type which was manufactured with features unique to London, as specified by the government procurer and operator of buses, London Transport. After a brief relaxation, the idea of a London specific bus continued through deregulation by the inclusion of required features of buses to be used on contract awarded routes, a practice continued under TfL.

Under this model, the companies operating buses in London are private enterprises, but the choice of vehicles they operate is essentially decided by TfL, governed by the need for manufacturers to supply a choice of buses to operators to the London specification. The Future Routemaster therefore, if offered by a manufacturer, can be introduced to London by being specified as the only acceptable type for certain route contracts.

Original Routemaster in London
Designed for and largely operated in London, over 2,800 of the original Routemaster bus were built between 1956 and 1968, following a design effort started in 1947. So robust was the design that the Routemaster outlived newer buses intended to replace it, into the deregulated era. It was not eventually withdrawn from regular London passenger service until December 2005.

From 31 December 2000 it had become mandatory for all new buses delivered in the UK to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, leading to the development of the wheelchair accessible low-floor bus. Through the TfL contract renewal process, after 2000, the Routemaster began to be isolated as the most common example of a non-wheelchair accessible bus type used on TfL routes.

The inaugural London Mayor Ken Livingstone had shown support for the Routemaster during his first term, indicating the type would be retained in a limited capacity on contract renewals as before. In 2004, after election as Mayor for a second term, Livingstone changed the policy on the Routemaster, preferring to convert the entire London fleet to modern bus types.

While older buses were exempt from the disability discrimination requirements until 2017, after the 2004 election, TfL adopted an internal policy aim of requiring all of its bus routes to be operated by low-floor buses, thereby requiring the withdrawal of the Routemaster from London. Contributory factors to the withdrawal were said to be the risk of litigation over accidents arising from using the rear platform, and the cost savings of one man operation, and that passengers preferred the comfort levels of modern buses to the now vintage Routemaster.

The Routemaster continues in operation on two Heritage Routes awarded as TfL contract tendered routes, but they do not contravene the TfL accessible public transport policy requirement as they are paralleled over their entire route by low-floor vehicles of the same route number.

FRM and XRM
An attempt to design a rear-engined front-entrance version of the Routemaster in 1964–1965 led to the construction of FRM1 (Front-entrance RouteMaster) in 1966. This prototype shared approximately 60% of its components with a standard Routemaster, and was the first integrally-constructed rear-engined double-decker built in Britain. Because of its single door (a serious drawback for a high-capacity bus) and continued mechanical problems associated with its unique  design, the FRM was considered a "dead end", although it did provide "proof of concept".

In 1968 London Transport went back to the drawing board for another replacement of the Routemaster, with an anticipated introduction date of 1985. The initial result was a four-axle low-floor design that would have been suitable for automatic fare collection. By 1975 the project was well in hand and had been named XRM (for eXperimantal RouteMaster). Features of the new design included a side-mounted engine for maximum flexibility in door and seating layout, and hydraulic drive to four small-wheeled axles for the lowest possible floor. Experiments in the mid-1970s yielded disappointing results, and in 1978 the XRM morphed into a more-conventional-looking vehicle, albeit with the rear door located behind the rear axle. Other proposed features were LPG fuel and hydraulic suspension to lower the floor entry floor at stops. XRM design work was cancelled in September 1980, as it was calculated that it would cost only £13.5m to rehabilitate 2,700 Routemasters vs. £153m to build 2,500 new XRMs.

A decade later London Transport once again looked for another replacement. In 1989 designs were solicited from Dennis Bus, Northern Counties Motor and Engineering Company and Walter Alexander Coachbuilders. Somewhat surprisingly, the style specified was a rear-entrance half-cab layout identical to the original Routemaster, but now considered obsolete elsewhere in Britain.

Initial Capoco proposal
On 3 September 2007 the then Conservative Mayoral candidate for London, Boris Johnson, running against the incumbent Ken Livingstone, announced that he was contemplating introducing a modern-day Routemaster bus. In December 2007, the UK automotive magazine Autocar commissioned the bus designer Capoco, designer of the innovative Optare Solo, to come up with detailed proposals for a new-generation Routemaster. Their design, dubbed the RMXL, was a hybrid technology low-floor bus with a lightweight aluminium space frame, with four more seats and twice the standing capacity of the old Routemaster, and still crew operated with a driver and conductor.

The design incorporated disabled access through a closing front door behind the front wheels, while retaining an open platform rear access, with the staircase still located at the rear. The hybrid drivetrain, with a front mounted continuous rev-ing hydrogenised petrol engine charges front mounted batteries, which power the rear wheels through rear mounted electric motors. This arrangement, through not requiring a mechanical transmission, allows for a low floor and a step free entrance into the lower deck from the rear platform.

Hydrogen storage tanks would be located under the rear staircase. The design was covered by the national press but attracted criticism from Ken Livingstone as being too costly to justify and still not safe, despite proposals to monitor the rear platform with cameras.

New Bus For London competition
Mayoral candidate Boris Johnson backed the Autocar / Capoco design in principle and suggested that he would hold a formal design competition to develop a new Routemaster if he was elected London mayor in 2008. He won the election on 4 May 2008 and two months later, on 4 July, he announced the New Bus For London competition.

An initiative of Transport for London, the competition invited anybody, both companies and members of the public, to submit ideas for consideration. The competition would have two categories, an Image category for general ideas and concepts, and a Design category, for more detailed proposals. In both categories, entries could be either "whole bus" submissions, or proposals for parts of the bus.

The Imagine category called for the submission of imaginative ideas for a red double-decker bus with a rear open platform, and one other entrance/exit with doors. The Design category called for detailed designs of a low floor red double-decker bus with at least one internal staircase, a rear open platform, and one other entrance/exit with doors, to be crewed by a driver and conductor, and be suitable for carrying 72 passengers seated and standing. The designs were required to satisfy a table of mandatory and suggested design specifications, and "be practical and economic and capable of being put into mass production". The competition was to feature cash prizes for entrants, with £25,000 for the winner, and smaller awards for good ideas.

Some initial proposals gained media attention after being unveiled during October 2008, namely a "smiley bus" known as the H4 (designed by the H4 Group). Future Systems offered a "space age" alternative powered by hydrogen. Foster and Partners submitted a glass roofed design. The competition was closed, and the winners announced on 19 December 2008. On closing, the competition had received 225 entries to the Design category, and 475 entries for the Imagine category. The competition entrants were judged by a panel of six, made up of a Tfl board member, two Tfl managers, two London Buses managers, and an independent judge, a former commercial director of Alexander Dennis.

The £25,000 prize for winning the whole bus Design category was shared between two entries, one from Capoco Design, a bus, coach and truck design firm, and one from a joint submission made by architects Foster and Partners and automotive company Aston Martin

Tendering process and final design
The winning and other merited entrants of both the Imagine and Design categories for both 'whole bus' submission and part submissions were passed by TfL to bus manufacturers, for them to draw up detailed final designs meeting all the relevant present day legislation, and later presented to TfL for consideration on a competitive tender basis. By April 2009, a formal invitation to express interest in the project was published in the Official Journal of the European Union

On 22 May 2009, six bus manufacturers were invited to negotiate for the contract to design and build the new bus. The six manufacturers were Alexander Dennis, EvoBus (which includes Mercedes-Benz buses), Hispano Carrocera, Optare, Scania AB, Wrightbus, having all met Transport for London's criteria for pre-qualification for tendering, which included demonstrating they had a manufacturing capacity of building 600 buses over 3 years. Volvo Buses declined to enter the bidding process. Transport for London set a deadline of 14 August for the submission of detailed tenders, and Scania and Evobus subsequently both pulled out before this deadline. Scania did not believe the timeline for introduction of the first prototype was feasible for them, while Evobus had concerns over their lack of a double-decker in the current line-up.

On 23 December 2009, Northern Ireland-based vehicle manufacturer Wrightbus was awarded the contract to build the Future Routemaster. The contract called for a bus with a capacity for at least 87 passengers, two staircases, three doors, and an open rear platform, able to be closed off when not required, such as at night. The bus would be a hybrid bus, utilising technology to make it 40 per cent more fuel efficient than conventional diesel buses, and 15 per cent more fuel efficient than London hybrid buses already in operation, also reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by 40 per cent and particulate matter by 33 per cent compared with conventional diesel buses.

On 17 May 2010, the final design for the new Routemaster was unveiled by Wrightbus, featuring asymmetric glass swoops as its signature "futuristic" styling feature. Transport for London and Wrightbus worked with Heatherwick Studio to produce the styling for Wrightbus' final design. As an iconic bus for London, Transport for London has applied to the Intellectual Property Office for Registered Design Protection for the Wrightbus exterior design.

The bodywork features two diagonal glass windows from top to bottom decks, one curving around the rear, the other on the right hand side towards the front, which serve to illuminate the interiors of both staircases with natural light. The rear staircase is in the same position as the original Routemaster, curving around the rear section, while the front staircase is straight, ascending on the right hand side of the chassis over the driver's cab, opening out in the front of the upper deck.

Production
A static mock-up was unveiled at Acton depot on 11 November 2010: the first prototype is likely to be delivered in late 2011, in time for the first new buses entering service in early 2012. The first engineering prototype was driven by Boris Johnson at a public demonstration on 27 May 2011.

Operation
According to the Greater London Authority, the three door and two staircase design is intended to aid speedier and smoother boarding. The rear door would be closed off at quieter times, for example, during the night. The use of three doors and two staircases is not new to London: London Transport previously evaluated a prototype bus in the 1980s as part of the Alternative Vehicle Evaluation program, which consisted of a specially modified Volvo Ailsa B55, with fleet number V3, having two staircases.

Ownership
Under the modern bus contract tendering system for London, routes are often updated with new buses every seven years, with new buses owned or leased by the operator, whether the route operator changes or not. Redundant buses, if not used on other London contracts, or sold to other London operators, often go on to further use outside London, either cascaded within the fleets of the large national operators who own several of the London operating companies, or sold to other regional companies.

The London transport commissioner Peter Hendy acknowledged in 2008 that there were economic challenges in requiring current private London bus operators to tender for routes if they required the outright purchase of the new bus for London. He acknowledged this could lead to higher bids overall, due to the fact a rear platform bus was unlikely to appeal to operators outside London, and with the questionable utility of hybrid technology to more rural operations.

An independent review of London buses by KPMG for Transport for London's London Buses Ltd division, who oversee the day to day network and route tendering system, but do not own or operate buses, found that in the current credit climate, the private London bus operators were reluctant to take on the residual value risk posed by the New Bus for London route contracts, while Transport for London would not be able to own the bus fleet due to capital restrictions. It therefore recommended that, to allow use of the new buses, that either route contracts be extended to the expected life of the buses, to use a leasing company to own the whole fleet, or to otherwise guarantee in some way that the residual risk to operators could be reduced.

Media
The launch of the design for the New Bus for London led to BBC One's The One Show airing a segment on 18 May 2010 reviewing the 100 year history of the London standard double-decker, with John Sergeant reviewing the history of, and riding preserved examples of, the 1910 built LGOC B-type, the RT-Type, and finally the original Routemaster.