LDN: current hybrid & prototype bus summary

For all of those intending to visit London in the near future;
As has been shown here, London Buses are paying for some new experiments - hybrid, new engines, etc.

Here is a list of what there is - and where to find them.

Hybrid Technology:

The oldest of them are the electocity Wright bodied single deck buses:
Two bus companies operate them:
London Central on route 360 ; normally there are 3-4 buses out on mon-sat [out of 7], the route requires 10 buses.
Travel London operated them on route 129 [North Greenwich]; the have 5 buses, the route requires 4 buses, and it is very unusual to see the whole route operated by those buses!

E200 Hybrid buses:
5 buses are due to operate on route 371 [Kingston to Richmond] from May; the route requires 14 buses.
[3 buses already delivered]

Tempos:
5 buses are due for route 276 in East London, although only one has been delivered. The route requires 16 buses.
5 buses are due for route E8 between Ealing Broadway and Brentford; 2 are in service [route requires 9-10 buses].

Double decks:
E400 ADLs:
5 buses operate on route 16 [Victoria -cricklewood] - the route needs 22-23 buses
2 buses operate on route 482 [heathrow airport T5 to Southall] - 9 buses on the route
5 buses operate on route 24 [in practice 3-4] in central London [29 buses requirement]

Wright Integrated hybrid bus:
Route 328 is supposed to see 5 of those buses in operation; in practice, there is usually only 1-2 buses during Mon-Fri only.
Arriva route 141 should have 5 of those buses; 2 have entered service last week, so far- they do not appear very often!
London General also has one bus which should operate on route 196, but it has not entered service yet.

Note: the former Wright hybrid bus HEV1 which operated on route 141 has finished it's operation in London.

All of those hybrid buses are in all red livery, with green stickers identifying them very clearly as hybrid buses.

Wright integrated Diesel bus:
London Central has one bus [nickname: 'weedle'] which operate on the 68/468/x68.[service requirements are 11/25/9 accordingly] code WDL1
First have 4 such buses - operating on route 23 during the week [out of 34 buses] code VN35001-4
Arriva will have 5 of those buses for route 141 - they are in London but have not entered service yet. code WD1-5
[route 141: Palmers Green, Wood Green, Newington Green, Moorgate, london bridge, requiring 24 buses].

Those buses are plain red.

in 2008/9 we had plenty of new buses put into service. many of the d/ds are E400 ADL tridents or scanias bodied in Poland or by Optare, and plenty of single decks- mostly are E200 ADLs, but we also had some east lancs darts [to enter service next month in Merton and Sutton garage on routes 80 163 164], MCV bodied darts [route 190]; also some MANs for Metrobus: 3 E200 bodied buses for route 130, and a batch for route 202 bodied by MCV.


regards

Yoram

Route 328 is supposed to see 5 of those buses in operation; in practice, there is usually only 1-2 buses during Mon-Fri only.
where are other 3 buses ? stay at garage..?

and i tried to take photo for them at sunday,but.....they were not on duty on that day.......

there were issues with bus performance - they were too slow - so they are not allocated to normal all day duty, which really means that the buses do not run all day.
So, they were/are used on special duties during the day on Mon-Fri only; also they are subjected to modifications etc, so most of the time you will not see them!

The Arriva examples:  2 went out on Tuesday afternoon, but had to cut back to Moorgate, and returned to the garage.
the next day, one was observed going to London Bridge, but it had to return empty to the garage.
On Thursday one bus completed a run from Wood Green garage to London Bridge and back -in service- and that was that.
on Friday none was out!

The sole bus in Stockwell garage was delivered 3 months ago; it was seen shadowing normal buses on routes 87 196 345 - with officials on board- but it has not been put into passenger service yet.

regards

Yoram