[LDN]: London United 12m single deck- testing, testing...

Lonodn United- AV [Hounslow] garage runs the 203 [6 buses] and the H37 [15 buses] - both routes specify 12m long buses.For this, 16 Optare Tempos - route H37, and 7 Citaros -route H37- were ordered by the company.

Last week, the garage switched the bus allocation, so the 203 was operated by Tempos, and the Citaros were operating on route H37 [7 out of 15 buses]. This ended on Friday.

The reason? 'performance comparison'.

I recorded the switch on Monday, here are the photos.

Regards

Yoram

They weren't new to the company right?

I took both buses quite frequently (not in LDN), my feeling is Citaro have stronger, pushing acceleration than Tempo. Though I didn't take Citaro on highway, I did take Tempo running nearly 100kph on highway and the experience was great

The H37 is a sort of 'stop and start' service = the route has many bus stops, and traffic is heavy.
So a bus serving the route can not travel fast [smile].

the 203 is longer, and has some opportunities for fast running [smile].

The tempos and the citaros are of the same age ['11' reg] and the same capacity [60 passengers], so London Buses do not really mind which one of them is used on the 203 or H37...

Citaros are very popular all over the world- well over 15,000 of them have been produced. Tempos? only a couple of hundreds.. [smile].

best wishes,

Yoram

Personnally I prefer Citaro than Tempo, surely is because of the quality and the brand itself

Follow both types from LUB