Bendy Buses in the UK

[Quakkerillo]

What might work in other parts of mainland Europe does not necessarily work in London

They're used all around in Europe. With pedestrians, busy streets, cyclists, and even on motorways.
Small streets, tight corners, it all works. I've only seen a small handful of routes in London where it's obvious articulated buses won't work.

If not for fare evasion, the lack of space (you can fit 3 double deckers where you could fit 2 articulated buses on streets/depots), I can't think of any other reason why it wouldn't be more feasible apart from people and drivers being too unfamiliar with them.

You'd also have to completely retrain a lot of drivers, for it'll take different skills, which might be another - economical - issue.

 

[matt_world2004]

I am suprised bendy buses were not retained by TfL / leased to Heathrow Airport holdings for the free travel zone / rail replacement services/Tram replacement services . People are not touching in on on these services anyway and they would cope well with large amounts of luggage.

 

[Antman]

Ah yes, of course, the 'Not Invented Here' approach to everything.

More like not suitable here
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

They're used all around in Europe. With pedestrians, busy streets, cyclists, and even on motorways.
Small streets, tight corners, it all works. I've only seen a small handful of routes in London where it's obvious articulated buses won't work.

If not for fare evasion, the lack of space (you can fit 3 double deckers where you could fit 2 articulated buses on streets/depots), I can't think of any other reason why it wouldn't be more feasible apart from people and drivers being too unfamiliar with them.

You'd also have to completely retrain a lot of drivers, for it'll take different skills, which might be another - economical - issue.

Fare evasion isn't an issue if everybody boards through the front door. Many other European cities have trams and therefore don't have the same level of bus service as London and the problems bendys cause for other buses makes them unsuitable for Central London. They might be suited to certain suburban routes but even then there are factors like garage space and the lack of a second hand market for them to be considered. Few buyers were found for those withdrawn from London even though they were available at a knock down price.

 

[johnw]

I found them very effective on former Red Arrow routes, but as a former poster stated, off-peak was probably not very cost effective.

My main use of them was to continue a daily commute from St Pancras to Tottenham Court Road which is always easier by bus than the Underground.

The 73 had just been converted to articulated buses from the Routemaster. The 73 nearly always came onto the stop standing room only - in either direction. Thus an uncomfortable standing journey added with poor driving standards. The seats when available were mostly located on these vehicles over wheel arches etc. The length of these vehicles often meant missing out sequences of traffic lights to turn onto junctions, due to the lack of road space.

Thus if time permitted, I would wait for a 10 or 390 which was double decker operated and nearly always guaranteed a seat.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The dwell times on artics were faster, both boarding and unloading. The thing that slows unloading is the staircase, it could take a good 2-3 minutes for everyone to get off a W7 Decker at Finsbury Park in a morning.

There are pros and cons to all types: artics carry plenty of people but mostly standing, standard deckers struggle with one staircase, and the two staircases on the NBfL mean it is too long for many routes in London.

 

[plcd1]

There's plenty of routes with interworking in London.

There are? If you exclude schools services where a bus may work to / from a peak bus working on a normal route I can't think of any. There are a couple of off peak routes which use a "spare" peak time bus - the W10, 389/399 and 359 are examples of that.

Otherwise every route is run on a standalone basis even if the fleet vehicles may, in some cases, be pooled. However increasingly vehicles are bought specifically for route contracts and are solely allocated to one route.

Care to name some of these interworked routes?

 

[Robbarry]

I worked as an engineer on the 25 route in London and there was no issue with the manoeuvrability of the citaro. In fact they were extremely easy to manoeuvre due to axle position, better than the Volvo and scania counterparts.

 

[Goldfish62]

I worked as an engineer on the 25 route in London and there was no issue with the manoeuvrability of the citaro. In fact they were extremely easy to manoeuvre due to axle position, better than the Volvo and scania counterparts.

Having driven one or two London ones I can vouch for that.

 

[Antman]

I worked as an engineer on the 25 route in London and there was no issue with the manoeuvrability of the citaro. In fact they were extremely easy to manoeuvre due to axle position, better than the Volvo and scania counterparts.

However there are many places double deckers can go but artics can't and often when there were diversions artics had to take a different diversion route.

 

[Robertj21a]

However there are many places double deckers can go but artics can't and often when there were diversions artics had to take a different diversion route.

........'many places double deckers can go but artics can't'...........

An artic is roughly the equivalent of a 11m rigid and can get round/through some very tight spaces across the world so I do get rather fed up with hearing that so much isn't possible in London. A 12m rigid bus would have more difficulty than an artic, so goodness knows how all those long single deckers, and even longer coaches, manage to get through London.......

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Down this way there's sometimes problems with full length single deckers or double deckers poking out into the main carriageway when parked at bus stops. If we had double-deckers on a lot of routes we'd have traffic being held up each time a bendi-bus stopped at a bus stop.

 

[Antman]

........'many places double deckers can go but artics can't'...........

An artic is roughly the equivalent of a 11m rigid and can get round/through some very tight spaces across the world so I do get rather fed up with hearing that so much isn't possible in London. A 12m rigid bus would have more difficulty than an artic, so goodness knows how all those long single deckers, and even longer coaches, manage to get through London.......

An artic is basically a 12m rigid with another bit on the back.

It's not so much what is impossible in London but what is practical and to blithely say what artics do in other countries is overlooking a whole host of issues.

 

[notadriver]

Their engines seem quite highly stressed and more prone to overheating than in contemporary buses. I think they are best used where they can get some speed up.

 

[Robertj21a]

An artic is basically a 12m rigid with another bit on the back.

It's not so much what is impossible in London but what is practical and to blithely say what artics do in other countries is overlooking a whole host of issues.

No, the wheelbase of the front section results in movement closer to an 11m rigid - as confirmed by many experienced artic drivers.

You keep objecting to the use of artics in London as 'overlooking a whole host of issues' - please be more specific as to what it is that is so unique about London as against cities in, say, Holland, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Greece etc.

 

[Antman]

No, the wheelbase of the front section results in movement closer to an 11m rigid - as confirmed by many experienced artic drivers.

You keep objecting to the use of artics in London as 'overlooking a whole host of issues' - please be more specific as to what it is that is so unique about London as against cities in, say, Holland, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Greece etc.

I think they have already been mentioned, you cannot have open boarding without accepting a considerable loss of revenue, and the same applies to the LT class, and I don't think open boarding buses (ie no ticket check) operate anywhere else in the UK? This means everybody boarding by the front door so there is no reduced of dwell times at stops.

Overall end to end journey times are no quicker than on conventional buses, this was shown on the long common sections of the 36/436 and 53/453.

Garage space is at a premium and many garages cannot accommodate artics.

Bus stop space in Central London is at a premium.

There is no second hand market for artics as very few other operators want them.

Comparisons with other European cities are irrelevant, double deckers are far more the norm in the UK, many European cities also have trams and don't have the same intensive bus network as London, so no great problems with bus stop capacity.

 

[MCR247]

Their engines seem quite highly stressed and more prone to overheating than in contemporary buses. I think they are best used where they can get some speed up.

Isn't that just Citaros in general rather than bendy ones?

 

[Robertj21a]

I think they have already been mentioned, you cannot have open boarding without accepting a considerable loss of revenue, and the same applies to the LT class, and I don't think open boarding buses (ie no ticket check) operate anywhere else in the UK? This means everybody boarding by the front door so there is no reduced of dwell times at stops.

Overall end to end journey times are no quicker than on conventional buses, this was shown on the long common sections of the 36/436 and 53/453.

Garage space is at a premium and many garages cannot accommodate artics.

Bus stop space in Central London is at a premium.

There is no second hand market for artics as very few other operators want them.

Comparisons with other European cities are irrelevant, double deckers are far more the norm in the UK, many European cities also have trams and don't have the same intensive bus network as London, so no great problems with bus stop capacity.

Of course you can have open boarding on artics in London, indeed that's what they are best at. Revenue controls are something different entirely and the two shouldn't be confused - this is an area where TfL could learn a lot from mainland Europe.

I'd agree that certain of the longer TfL routes were not the best examples to use for artic operation - the 25, 436 etc spring to mind. What should have been done (and may well again in years to come?) is to operate artics more as feeders to main railway/tube stations - rather like the 507/521 but across London as a whole.

Two 18m artics take up much the same garage space as 3 rigids. As long as the right routes/depots are chosen there is little overall difference.

There doesn't need to be a second-hand market for artics, they should live their lives in TfL-land. There won't be a market for Boris's decker either outside London, that's why TfL have had to buy them.

 

[radamfi]

Double deckers cannot be used in many areas outside the UK due to low bridges so they are basically forced to use artics. One major advantage of artics not mentioned yet is that you can specify double glazing and proper air conditioning. Double glazing in particular gives a great improvement in comfort in winter. Double glazing is tricky on double deckers because of weight.

Double deckers are particularly suitable for routes with lengthy gaps between stops, such as long distance coaches, as dwell time is not an issue. For example, Germany has a lot of long distance coaches run by double deckers now.

 

[notadriver]

National express no longer has double decker coaches as they keep toppling over. What's the capacity of an 18 meter bendy coach against a 15 meter coach ?

 

[the101]

Double deckers cannot be used in many areas outside the UK due to low bridges so they are basically forced to use artics. One major advantage of artics not mentioned yet is that you can specify double glazing and proper air conditioning. Double glazing in particular gives a great improvement in comfort in winter. Double glazing is tricky on double deckers because of weight.

Not really. UK body manufacturers have been doing it on Hong Kong and Singapore examples - including two-axle buses - for many years.

The thing which you are overlooking in your comments about air-conditioning is that adding it will cause fuel consumption to increase still further. About 4mpg or less depending on conditions is where an artic is at. To add air conditioning - which would probably require two roof-mounted units given the 18m length - is going to make that even worse. As an indication, tri-axle air-conditioned DDs in Hong Kong, which are not much different to an artic weight-wise, are running at around 2.4mpg. Who in their right mind in the UK can justify that?

 

[radamfi]

National express no longer has double decker coaches as they keep toppling over.

I can only think of one high profile accident with a Neoplan, caused by poor driving, and the driver was jailed. Any others?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Not really. UK body manufacturers have been doing it on Hong Kong and Singapore examples - including two-axle buses - for many years.

The thing which you are overlooking in your comments about air-conditioning is that adding it will cause fuel consumption to increase still further. About 4mpg or less depending on conditions is where an artic is at. To add air conditioning - which would probably require two roof-mounted units given the 18m length - is going to make that even worse. As an indication, tri-axle air-conditioned DDs in Hong Kong, which are not much different to an artic weight-wise, are running at around 2.4mpg. Who in their right mind in the UK can justify that?

I didn't realise there were double-glazed double deckers with 2-axles outside the UK. I'm more bothered about double-glazing than air-conditioning.

Obviously there's a cost to these things, but as a passenger I want comfort and if I don't get it I won't travel by bus. I do most of my bus travelling outside the UK these days and so I'm now used to double glazing and I'm beginning to think of air-conditioning as standard too as I mostly get it on the train in the UK and it is even standard on buses in places like Rotterdam with a climate comparable to the UK.

 

[bussnapperwm]

National express no longer has double decker coaches as they keep toppling over. What's the capacity of an 18 meter bendy coach against a 15 meter coach ?

How come stagecoach insist on buying them then for various routes?

 

[notadriver]

Because they trust their drivers ? [emoji3]

 

[Busaholic]

There's plenty of routes with interworking in London.

My research into route interworking in London has produced these results:-

(Harrow area) H2/H3 4 buses
(Harrow area) H18/H19 7 buses
(North London) 327/491 11 buses
(North London) 389/399 offpeak routes worked by one bus
(Orpington) R5/R10 1 bus
(Orpington) R3/R4 up to 4 buses on Sundays and weekday evenings only
at other times scheduled as two separate routes.

The only other 'interworking' of routes occurs on some night routes which mostly shadow day routes and late evening/early morning journies may change from one to the other, and just occasionally you get an 'anomaly' like the Belvedere allocation on the N1 which also work early/late 180s.

The situation of Quality Incentive contracts on routes let by tender doesn't allow for initiatives like taking a bus off one route and putting it on to another route, even if worked by the same operator. In the pre-privatisation days it was the TGWU which prevented such things, except in very limited circumstances, almost all of which involved factory/works services e.g. the 135/A at Brimsdown and the 176/A in south London, also the famous 15/100 in east London. No buses ever worked from the 108 to the 108A, the 21 to the 21A or the 38 to the 38A even though they shared home garages and at least one common terminal point. I know - I lived in Eltham and was dismayed on many occasions waiting at Poplar to find six 108s passing before a 108A deigned to show, even though for most of the day the frequencies were identical.

 

[Deerfold]

There are? If you exclude schools services where a bus may work to / from a peak bus working on a normal route I can't think of any. There are a couple of off peak routes which use a "spare" peak time bus - the W10, 389/399 and 359 are examples of that.

Otherwise every route is run on a standalone basis even if the fleet vehicles may, in some cases, be pooled. However increasingly vehicles are bought specifically for route contracts and are solely allocated to one route.

Care to name some of these interworked routes?

I hadn't realised I wasn't allowed to use school routes when I talked of interworking.

Having seen the internal London Bus Schedules for many routes, it's not uncommon to see references to the previous or next trip being on a different route.

I'm afraid I haven't been writing them down as I've seen them, but I'll see if I can find a few examples:

108 / 321 (late evening journeys on the 321 become 108s).
118 / 77
X68 / 68 / 468 (also school routes 624, 658)
425 / N550 / N551

Your 389/399 interwork as they use the same bus (which has come off the 299).

Along with busaholics's 6 examples (and the school services) I thought that was "plenty" compared with the claim that interworking was not condoned.


I'm sure there's others.

The situation of Quality Incentive contracts on routes let by tender doesn't allow for initiatives like taking a bus off one route and putting it on to another route, even if worked by the same operator.

There's nothing in QICs to preclude this happening, so long as all the buses meet the specification for the route its moved onto. Operators are trying to meet various targets on all routes and sometimes it may make sense for them to improve one route at the expense of another. Of course that requires drivers to know the route they are to moved to. Some operators move drivers around routes rarely.

 

[Hophead]

I think this discussion rather depends on how you're interpreting "interworking". It has long been the practice in London for one route to 'borrow' a bus or two from another route to run some additional journeys in the peak.

What has been rare, and continues to be, is the provincial practice of buses arriving at the terminus on one service, then swapping onto a completely different route, returning and then swapping back to the original route (or then moving to a 3rd service before finally joining the 1st route again), with this happening to every bus throughout all or most of the day.

 

[Deerfold]

I think this discussion rather depends on how you're interpreting "interworking". It has long been the practice in London for one route to 'borrow' a bus or two from another route to run some additional journeys in the peak.

What has been rare, and continues to be, is the provincial practice of buses arriving at the terminus on one service, then swapping onto a completely different route, returning and then swapping back to the original route (or then moving to a 3rd service before finally joining the 1st route again), with this happening to every bus throughout all or most of the day.

Indeed that is unusual - only short infrequent routes like the 389/399 see that happening.

 

[Busaholic]

I hadn't realised I wasn't allowed to use school routes when I talked of interworking.

Having seen the internal London Bus Schedules for many routes, it's not uncommon to see references to the previous or next trip being on a different route.

I'm afraid I haven't been writing them down as I've seen them, but I'll see if I can find a few examples:

108 / 321 (late evening journeys on the 321 become 108s).
118 / 77
X68 / 68 / 468 (also school routes 624, 658)
425 / N550 / N551

Your 389/399 interwork as they use the same bus (which has come off the 299).

Along with busaholics's 6 examples (and the school services) I thought that was "plenty" compared with the claim that interworking was not condoned.


I'm sure there's others.



There's nothing in QICs to preclude this happening, so long as all the buses meet the specification for the route its moved onto. Operators are trying to meet various targets on all routes and sometimes it may make sense for them to improve one route at the expense of another. Of course that requires drivers to know the route they are to moved to. Some operators move drivers around routes rarely.

Just because a bus is used on a school route prior to going onto another route doesn't make the routes interworked. In almost every case the bus will have to make an oos journey to its home garage first, and maybe change driver too. Not the meaning of the word 'interworking' in my book, or indeed any I've ever read!

 

[Be3G]

My research into route interworking in London has produced these results:-

[…]
327/491 11 buses

If we're using the changing-from-one-route-to-another mid-shift definition of interworking, then I believe the 327/491 no longer qualify: at the beginning of the contract they did try it, but I think the timings weren't reliable enough so now the 327 has gone back to just being one (presumably very boring) drive round and round its tiny pocket of North London every half an hour.

(I maybe should add that the 327 is one of my local routes, although it's very rare that I actually see it and even rarer that I catch it!)

 

[Antman]

Of course you can have open boarding on artics in London, indeed that's what they are best at. Revenue controls are something different entirely and the two shouldn't be confused - this is an area where TfL could learn a lot from mainland Europe.

I'd agree that certain of the longer TfL routes were not the best examples to use for artic operation - the 25, 436 etc spring to mind. What should have been done (and may well again in years to come?) is to operate artics more as feeders to main railway/tube stations - rather like the 507/521 but across London as a whole.

Two 18m artics take up much the same garage space as 3 rigids. As long as the right routes/depots are chosen there is little overall difference.

There doesn't need to be a second-hand market for artics, they should live their lives in TfL-land. There won't be a market for Boris's decker either outside London, that's why TfL have had to buy them.

Why is open boarding what they are best at? The artics that operate elsewhere in the UK don't have open boarding because obviously it would result in a considerable loss of revenue.

I think tube feeder routes like the W7 would possibly be suited to artic operation subject obviously to clearances etc.

Very few buses finish their working lives in London. With few opportunities to sell artics they would have to remain in London until they were fit for the scrapyard. Whether any other operator would be interested in buying LT's in years to come remains to be seen.

I really don't see what this fascination is with artics quite honestly, mainland Europe where double deckers are rare is a totally different ball game.