Graham Harrison wrote:


It's not a Routemaster.

Tom

Are we sure it's 87 seats? Or is it 87 capacity (x seats and y standing)?

As Garius points out, it's 87 *capacity* which explains a lot - the
actual seating is less than the original Routemaster let alone a modern
double decker or even a bendy, which has twice as many seats downstairs.

In point of fact it's got fewer seats downstairs than a modern midi-bus,
the local ones of which tend to have about 25.

Tom

On 17 May, 17:23, Mizter T wrote:
On May 17, 2:38*pm, MIG wrote:





On 17 May, 14:12, Tom Barry wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
to my eyes at least, it does look good

Not to mine - the front is a hideous, bulbous eyed mess and looks like
it's got a black eye, while the back sacrifices the rear window for a
stylistic swoosh. *The sides are OK in a 'just like any modern long
distance coach' way, but who judges a bus by its sides?

What's more important is how big the thing is, looks huge to me. *It
would have to be to fit in 87 seats, three doors and two staircases, mind.

It's not a Routemaster.

Good. *A Routemaster was already retro in the 1950s. *The bendys have
weaned us off filing through a narrow gap past the driver, at the cost
of a ludicrous amount of wasted road space.

The "wasted road space" of which you speak being space used for
passengers actually on the bus - the long single deck and multiple
doors meaning loading and unloading happens quicker thus dwell times
are reduced, making journeys speedier and resulting in fewer actual
vehicles being required.

(I think it was Tom Barry - well it must have been - who attempted to
work out the total road space that would be used by the double-deckers
that replaced the bendies on route 38 - IIRC his calculation was that
they would actually occupy *more* road space.)

But the total area taken up by lots of small vehicles doesn't cause
anything like the havoc caused by one very long one. If it did, you'd
have one bus a mile long causing less problems than 176 double
deckers.

The issues around blocking crossings and not being able to move across
box junctions etc etc are because all the length is in a single
vehicle.

So, does it allow plenty of access points, upper deck rather than
excessive road space and general accessibility?

Chances are it does, in which case I might take back some of my
criticisms of the project. *[...]

(Leaving aside road space issues...)

much cut

Not wanting to make all this exceptionally large, I accept all your
scepticism that I'm not forwarding on, and you couldn't be much more
sceptical than I already was; just that I melted slightly to see that
it isn't the Routemaster pastiche.

In message , Paul Corfield
writes

The 12m Tri-axle version of the above bus for Hong Kong can readily
carry 80 seated and 46 standees! These are dual doored vehicles and
the seat pitch is a tad less generous than the UK given the slightly
smaller proportions of the HK Chinese.

Hey, leave The Boy out of this
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

On 17 May, 22:30, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:19:42 -0700 (PDT), MIG

wrote:
On 17 May, 17:23, Mizter T wrote:
(I think it was Tom Barry - well it must have been - who attempted to
work out the total road space that would be used by the double-deckers
that replaced the bendies on route 38 - IIRC his calculation was that
they would actually occupy *more* road space.)

But the total area taken up by lots of small vehicles doesn't cause
anything like the havoc caused by one very long one. *If it did, you'd
have one bus a mile long causing less problems than 176 double
deckers.

So speaks the voice of someone who hasn't encountered a swarm of public
light buses in Hong Kong blocking the highway. *There are other places
that have similar schemes with "free enterprise" midibuses or shared
taxis. *Chile and Moscow spring to mind as does somewhere in Asia.

Unless that's the only alternative to bendy buses in London I don't
see the relevance.

I am not actually claiming that three double deckers are going to be
replaced by single deckers a mile long, but it's just as unlikely.

I was assuming some kind of equivalence in capacity, not one bendy
replaced by a whole swarm.



The issues around blocking crossings and not being able to move across
box junctions etc etc are because all the length is in a single
vehicle.

We've done this to death but inconsiderate drivers of vehicles of any
length can block box junctions if they see fit - double deck buses
included.

We certainly have, and considerate drivers are more likely to make a
mistake if their vehicle is very long, and also have to hold back when
smaller vehicles could have gone ahead. (They are mostly rescued by
bus lanes, but not everywhere.)

On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:12:43 +0100, Tom Barry
wrote:

What's more important is how big the thing is, looks huge to me. It
would have to be to fit in 87 seats, three doors and two staircases, mind.

It's not a Routemaster.

I think it is to a Routemaster what a new Mini is to an old one. It
could never have been as small as a real Routemaster, as it couldn't
have been made accessible enough. And while Routemasters are quite
fun, there is a bit of a lack of legroom for us taller passengers.

I think it's in essence a vertical-engined (I assume) Wright hybrid
decker with a bodykit. This will probably help to make it not too
expensive, which means it might actually happen.

Put differently, I was a cynic, but now I've seen it I like it, even
if it does run around 90% of the time driver-only with the platform
closed. Though if it does do that they'll need some means of making
that visible - will it perhaps be shown on the blind?

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.

On Mon, 17 May 2010 22:30:59 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

So speaks the voice of someone who hasn't encountered a swarm of public
light buses in Hong Kong blocking the highway. There are other places
that have similar schemes with "free enterprise" midibuses or shared
taxis. Chile and Moscow spring to mind as does somewhere in Asia.

They were banned some time ago in Kuala Lumpur because they did clog
the place up.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.

Mizter T wrote:


(I think it was Tom Barry - well it must have been - who attempted to
work out the total road space that would be used by the double-deckers
that replaced the bendies on route 38 - IIRC his calculation was that
they would actually occupy *more* road space.)


Using the then-current DD lengths it was less on the 38 but a lot more
on the 507/521 with their 12m single deckers, so the net change of the
first debendifications was zero (well, 9m). Generally replacement with
normal DDs reduces the length, though.

Ahem:
38 bendy - 18*47 = 846m
38 DD - 10.4*72 = 748.8m
38 BM - 11.2*72 = 806.4m

So you save a bit of space, just under four bus lengths. Subsequent
conversions are at lower replacement rates, which increases the
reduction at the expense of capacity.

Obviously amount of road taken up isn't the be all and end all - the 521
bunches badly whenever I've seen it post-conversion; my personal record
is four in a row. In any case anyone in the industry will tell you it's
not buses that hold up traffic but junctions.

Tom

On Tue, 18 May 2010 00:02:05 +0200, Neil Williams
wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:12:43 +0100, Tom Barry
wrote:

It's not a Routemaster.

I think it is to a Routemaster what a new Mini is to an old one. It
could never have been as small as a real Routemaster, as it couldn't
have been made accessible enough. And while Routemasters are quite
fun, there is a bit of a lack of legroom for us taller passengers.

I think it's in essence a vertical-engined (I assume) Wright hybrid
decker with a bodykit. This will probably help to make it not too
expensive, which means it might actually happen.

Put differently, I was a cynic, but now I've seen it I like it, even
if it does run around 90% of the time driver-only with the platform
closed. Though if it does do that they'll need some means of making
that visible - will it perhaps be shown on the blind?


It is a strange combination of about 85% modern bus with the remaining
15% at the back being a grafted-on Routemaster-style platform and
stairs.

If it did run around 90% of the time driver-only with the platform
closed, what would be the point of it?

On Mon, 17 May 2010 23:56:03 +0100
Tom Barry wrote:
Obviously amount of road taken up isn't the be all and end all - the 521
bunches badly whenever I've seen it post-conversion; my personal record
is four in a row. In any case anyone in the industry will tell you it's
not buses that hold up traffic but junctions.

They may be what people with a vested interest will say but anyone who drives
in londons knows that if theres slow moving traffic theres either a bus or
a pensioner at the head of it. Usually the former. And the best bit is when
bus drivers can't be arsed to pull into bus stops even where they're clear
and just stop in the middle of the road causing a jam. And thats before you
get onto the topic of the underpowered heaps not being able to maintain the
speed limit going up certain hills such as hampstead, highgate and mill hill.

B2003

On Tue, 18 May 2010 08:32:00 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

And thats before you
get onto the topic of the underpowered heaps not being able to maintain the
speed limit going up certain hills such as hampstead, highgate and mill hill.


The speed limit is a maximum, not a minimum.