Mass Transit magazine features agency profiles, industry trends, management tips and new product information.
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28 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | NOVEMBER 2014 manufacturers trying to mirror some of the design concepts and get their product on the market." Leaders in London frst went to the public when the decision was made to create an updated Route- master to be introduced into the city. Children and builders like As- ton Martin were asked to design this new-generation bus, with Tomas Heatherwick, of Heatherwick Stu- dios, designer of the Olympic Caul- dron for the 2012 games in London, chosen for the fnal design. It was expected in two years' time the concept would go from a blank piece of paper into service. "I went for a brief at TfL's head- quarters with the Transportation Commissioner Sir Peter Hendy, and he said, 'If I walk down to the news agents across the street and get a postcard of Big Ben, a black cab and a red Routemaster, in fve year's time, I want to walk down, Big Ben, black cab, your bus,'" said David Barnett, product director for Wrightbus. "Tat's your brief. For- get specifcations; forget building to a cost, or the environment. All of that's important, but that's the vision — this has to be a postcard." Filbey said Hendy and Tf L Managing Director of Surface Transport Leon Daniels take the Routemaster very seriously. "Tey're both, shall we say, geeky Harry's about the Route- master," he joked. Tere are currently 275 new Routemasters produced by Wright- bus in service in London, with an expectation of 600 of them in ser- vice by April 2016. Filbey said there are discussions about purchasing another 200 of them and Wright's contract goes up to 1,000 buses. All the buses are hybrids, equipped with a Siemens driveline coupled to a 4.5 liter Cummins diesel engine, which meets Euro 5 standards. Testing is in place for engines set to Euro 6 spec to go into service next year as the U.K. has yet to mandate the standard. Designers also reached out to the disabled and blind community to meet design changes in the new bus then cobbled together a proto- type on top of an old Scania chassis for the public to critique. Barnett said big ideas came to play, such as adding a door to the rear to stop people from jumping onto a moving bus. All units are ofcially cashless with Oyster card readers at all en- trances and riders can enter the bus from the rear door in order to avoid a queue caused by tourists asking questions. It also produced small at- tentions to detail, like pole holders. "Tat handpole clamp; no, it's ugly," Barnett said pointing at a photo of a standard clamp. "Tat passenger, day in, day out, look- ing at that handpole clamp. We agreed on this project to throw away the rule books." Buses also can operate on non- peak hours with just an opera- tor who monitors entrances via closed-circuit cameras. Even their position within a fully enclosed operator cabin was repositioned to give them a better view to the side of the bus. Te creation of an iconic new bus was important to London po- liticos, but there was still a need to make sure the fuel costs didn't get lost in the mix. "In the U.K., fuel cost proba- bly wasn't even the second biggest cost segment, but now it is the second and it's growing," Barnett said. "By the end of this year, or certainly by the end of the frst quarter of next year, it's probably going to be the single biggest item over and above driver wages in terms of cost to the operators." Filbey said Tf L has its own test- ing site at its Millbrook site where the Siemens hybrid systems were getting 10 miles per gallon on the Routemaster, but even though the testing is mirrored afer an actu- al route, in real life, the buses are getting about 8 mpg, which is still better than conventional hybrids getting about 6.5 mpg. Teething issues Filbey said TfL has been using the lithium ion batteries for six years and there hasn't been any issues with overheating on hybrid buses. A prototype bus did catch fre, but it wasn't in service. Te Routemasters are using lithium phosphate batter- ies, but new ones coming in the near future will use lithium titanium. "When you're at the vanguard of technology as we are, battery tech- nology has been an issue for us in the vehicles," Filbey said. "And for a number of diferent reasons, some have ended up in diesel-only mode." Tf L is still working on improv- ing the time in between failures of the units as well. "Realistically, it's not ideally where we want it to be as it ex- ceeded by 0.3 percent," he said. "When we frst got them there was a learning curve, so it was quite high at 0.4 to 0.45 percent. A lot of the vehicles had to be shut down and rebooted, so it was a big learn- ing curve, but now we're seeing the feet running comparatively well." SIEMENS HYBRID units are powering the new Routemaster buses built by Wrightbus for service in London. Siemens By the Numbers Vehicles 8,765 Contracted service providers 16 Routes 700 Bus stops 19,500 Passengers 6.5 million DOUBLE-DECKER BUSES Siemens