[LDN] When History goes round and round............

I rmbr when ma told me not to play with fire and I answered back.  I burnt me thumb.  
Kenny learnt his lesson by losing his seat in the City Hall, the Tories starts again.
Bendis proven an inadequate transport type for busy London, lesson learnt? We're not sure.

When History happens again and again, some just didn't get it at all.  
History goes round and round, how did your story start?

[ 本帖最後由 smal 於 2008-6-1 04:50 編輯 ]

原帖由 smal 於 2008-5-31 20:11 發表
I rmbr when ma told me not to play with fire and I answered back.  I burnt me thumb.  
Kenny learnt his lesson by losing his seat in the City Hall, the Tories starts again.
Bendis proven an inadequate ...

Well I won't hold my breathe though. Bendibus have a very small place in London I think, on the Red Arrows route. Other than that, there are over 500 of these to get rid of if Boris Johnston, the new London mayor, so wish. The big question is, who are going to pick them up?

The London Citaros are on lease to London Buses.  
If anybody want to replace all of them, replacements would cost £170,000 each. and you can not replace one artic with one d/d bus- the ratio should be 1.5 or more. this is very costly.
and the operating contracts would have to be re-negotiated.  The point is that an operating contract is for 5 years  which can be extended by 2 years for a total of 7 years. if you want to change the contract radically in the middle, you will have to re-work the terms and prices. Plus the fact that it will be very costly indeed to replace buses in the middle of the contract.

So, from a business point of view, the logic would be to review artic operation as each contract is being re-tendered.
The first such contract would be for the red arrow routes.  Route 149 contract was extended by 2 years beyond Oct 2008.

So far, route 453 is the only example: the citaros used by East London were replaced by new machines operated by Go Ahead. the east London machines were returned to Dawson Rental:
a few were dispatched again to East London for extras on route 25, some will be dispatched to Arriva for extras on their routes [149 and  ???], and the rest have been used for a  contract to ferry the workers of the Olympic Games site in East London. The contract was won by HCT and the citaros returned in white livery to HCT [on lease]

Ken's regime coincided with a period of economic growth, and with a dramatic rise in the number of people working and living in London- leading to a huge rise in passenger numbers. Now the economy is slowing down, and the Mayor of London is a Conservative, while the govn't is Labour. It remains to be seen what will happen to the annual grant from the govn't to London Buses.  Certainly, it is cheaper to award a contract using 7 year old buses instead of new buses.
We shall have to wait and see...

Regards

Yoram

原帖由 yblumann 於 2008-6-1 17:25 發表
The London Citaros are on lease to London Buses.  
If anybody want to replace all of them, replacements would cost £170,000 each. and you can not replace one artic with one d/d bus- the ratio should be 1.5 or more. this is very costly.

I am particularly internested how the ratio is calculated.

each artic can carry 149 people- mostly standing. a d/d can carry about 80 people- seats + standing,
the exact ratio depends on budgets and - hate to use this word- politics! so a more accurate answer can not be supplied- sorry!

regards

Yoram