Tom Barry gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

With substantially higher capacity, nearly twice as much.

....as long as everybody's happy about standing, of course.

The Bendy has far less seating capacity.

and if you compare bendy against bendy replacement single decker the
bendy wins on weight (and indeed on pretty much every other ground -
the rigid option has more buses

That's a bad thing?

more cumulative length of bus

Only if the buses are somehow firmly fixed nose-to-tail.

more drivers

And?

and more risk to cyclists

Mmmm. Every London cyclist I know seems to loath bendis with a _passion_.
Usually based on a near-death-experience.

So why are modern buses heavier? Partly, I suspect, for the same
reasons modern trains are heavier - for many years the commercial
incentives in what is now a competitive market were around minimising
initial cost, maintenance and downtime (which translates as 'stick a bit
of extra metal on it and don't waste time optimising for weight or it'll
be late to market and uncompetitive on price') and people have got
bigger - the RM is a bit narrower and a lot shorter than a modern bus,
which are usually 2550mm wide.

OK, so scale the RM width up from 2440mm (8') to 2550mm. You've just gone
up from 7.5t to 7.8t.
Scale the RM length up from 9.1m (30' RML) to 10.8m (Dennis Enviro 400),
and you're up to 9.2t. So where'd that other few tons come from on the
nice shiny modern "fuel-efficient" bus, then?

The modern double-deckers don't seat or stand any more people than the
RMs, either.

Bendis just plain don't fit London streets with tight junctions,
pedestrian refuges and frequent traffic lights.

Free markets don't lead to optimised design, since design quality is one
of a number of conflicting requirements in product design in a
competitive environment. I'm not sure a convinced Thatcherite like
Boris necessarily understands this, considering how he keeps going on
about value for money.

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. Purchase cost is just one factor in
the complete lifecycle running costs.

On Dec 1, 3:24 pm, Adrian wrote:
Mmmm. Every London cyclist I know seems to loath bendis with a _passion_.
Usually based on a near-death-experience.

Most cyclists seem to be pretty clueless with regards to basic
survival techniques on the road. They jump red lights, pass vehicles
on the inside near left turns, then surprise! One day they're a jam
sandwich under someones wheels and yet for some reason its always the
drivers fault.

OK, so scale the RM width up from 2440mm (8') to 2550mm. You've just gone
up from 7.5t to 7.8t.
Scale the RM length up from 9.1m (30' RML) to 10.8m (Dennis Enviro 400),
and you're up to 9.2t. So where'd that other few tons come from on the
nice shiny modern "fuel-efficient" bus, then?

Crash protection and emissions control systems I should imagine.

Bendis just plain don't fit London streets with tight junctions,
pedestrian refuges and frequent traffic lights.

********. They fit fine on all the main roads. Funnily enough so do
HGVs.

B2003

On Mon, Dec 01, 2008 at 08:53:57AM -0800, Boltar wrote:
On Dec 1, 3:24 pm, Adrian wrote:
Bendis just plain don't fit London streets with tight junctions,
pedestrian refuges and frequent traffic lights.
********. They fit fine on all the main roads. Funnily enough so do
HGVs.

When was the last time you saw a HGV trying to turn right from
Bloomsbury Street onto New Oxford Street?

--
David Cantrell | A machine for turning tea into grumpiness

Today's previously unreported paraphilia is tomorrow's Internet sensation

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008, Adrian wrote:

Tom Barry gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

and more risk to cyclists

Mmmm. Every London cyclist I know seems to loath bendis with a
_passion_. Usually based on a near-death-experience.

I'm pleased to offer myself as one that doesn't.

The stats show very clearly that bendy buses are no more dangerous to
cyclists than normal buses, when considered on a route basis, and may even
be substantially safer.

Bendis just plain don't fit London streets with tight junctions,
pedestrian refuges and frequent traffic lights.

I would certainly agree that there are some routes where they don't fit,
and those should perhaps be debendified or re-routed. There are also many
routes where they fit fine.

tom

--
All roads lead unto death row; who knows what's after?

Tom Anderson gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

Mmmm. Every London cyclist I know seems to loath bendis with a
_passion_. Usually based on a near-death-experience.

I'm pleased to offer myself as one that doesn't.

Long may it stay that way...

I wouldn't have said I knew you, though. grin