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NOVEMBER 2014 | MassTransitmag.com | Mass Transit | 27 NEW WRIGHTBUS Routemaster double-decker buses being put into service by Transport for London are equipped with Siemens hybrid technology. It's the largest order of hybrid buses in history. Wrightbus HEN BORIS JOHNSON became mayor of Lon- don in 2008, he came to ofce with three promis- es: to get rid of the police commissioner, get rid of the articulated buses and bring back the old Route- master double-deck buses. An avid cyclist, Johnson con- sidered the articulated buses to be the scourge of London responsi- ble for the deaths of many using a bicycle to commute around town. However, bringing back a 60-year-old bus concept wasn't exactly something transportation leaders were excited to see. "The Routemaster, we're talking 7 ½ tones (8.3 tons), 60- odd capacity and 40-odd years old," said Gary Filbey, engineering director for Transport for London (Tf L). "Historically, what a fan- tastic piece of get, but had to be rebuilt every four years." Te concept hatched plans to bring on a new generation of Routemaster into the United Kingdom's largest city and in the process, brought on the single largest order of hybrid buses ever placed in the world. Something old, something new TfL is one of the largest transport systems in the world, running 24 hours per day 364 days per year, with Christmas Day the only time buses stand idle with the exception of dial-a-ride. About 16 contractors split 700 diferent bus routes. Tere are 8,765 vehicles spread across the feet, with 16 contract- ed service providers servicing 6.5 million passengers per day from 19,500 bus stops on 700 routes throughout a city even cab driv- ers describe as "higgledy pig- glidy." Of those vehicles, Filbey said about three-quarters of them are double-decked. Te articulated buses were put into service, but afer some acci- dents with pedestrians and bicy- clists afer being put into service on some poorly chosen routes in London. Te plan to bring back the Routemaster pushed forward despite the high cost given how new the articulated buses were. Filbey said some of the articulated buses ended up heading to Mat- la, some are sitting in a feld and some even caught on fre. Te 16 operators are given a set of parameters they must hit, such as no more than 1.2 minutes per next bus. Buses are expected to last 12 to 14 years, which the operators choose and own. Te U.K. is environmentally a forward-thinking country, so Fil- bey said TfL has been embracing hybrid technology since its early days along with hydrogen and pure electric buses, including those pres- ently being tested by BYD. When it began looking into hybrids, Filbey said 56 units came to the property from various confgurations. Some were double-deck, but there are a lot of growing pains in the early years. Tere are currently 875 hy- brids in the TfL feet. "I think we need to explore everybody's technology and we don't want to put ourselves in the position with the operators to say 'you will buy this,'" Filbey said. "We would not want to do that and I don't think that would be right anyways because, bear in mind, it's all government grant money going for this, so it's up to the operators to choose, then they'll live or die by their decision." Some old Routemasters are still in service along Heritage Route No. 15 in London and some res- idents look back on the old buses fondly, so designers and planners had to make sure a new bus didn't get stuck in the past. "With the old Routemaster, what a fantastic vehicle, it runs for 40 years," Filbey said. "Well, it was rebuilt every four years, it had 424 campaign modifcations done to it during its early system's change … I don't think we'll ever go down that road with this, but I have no doubt that there will be other "The Routemaster, we're talking 7 ½ tones (8.3 tons), 60-odd capacity and 40-odd years old ... Historically, what a fantastic piece of get, but had to be rebuilt every four years." W