Autocar - First for car news and reviews

Whether you've got your copy of this week's Christmas double issue of Autocar or not, you may have already read about one of the star attraction features contained within it.
Autocar, in collaboration with Capoco Design, has redesigned London's Routemaster bus for the 21st century. The story's been picked up by much of the national and international media - the BBC, Read the full article

 

Nice idea. Shame about the awful retro 'face' tacked on to the front!

There must be a way of keeping the signature light/grill combination but moving the game on stylistically. The design heritage of icons like the Routemaster are important, but as a nation do we really want to be stuck in 1950's Britain? Jaguar are living proof that you can't keep look back....

How about an Autocar design competition? Open to any readers - sticking to some basic package restrictions that you guys have already finalised - to come up with a realistic and forward-looking London bus? I for one would sign-up straight away...

I think it's very clever. Real solutions are what's needed NOT pathetic and very dangerous bendy buses which have claimed many lives...especially that poor guy getting off the N25 recently. The driver did not even see him. This crippled traffic both north AND south of the river near where I am.

Bendy buses are very dangerous, according to comments I have read TFL say "bendy bus fatatlities are very rare.."....excuse me? Rare? There should not be any at ALL. If this was private transport, there would a call for them to be banned or a recall. It would've got to the Houses of Parliament.

The fact that Livingston & advisors are not thinking things through shows that actually embracing modern automotive technologies based on CARS have brought a very forward thinking design which is enviromentally friendly, really shines a light on the desperation and non-sensical thinkin of TFL. (Amongst other things)

 Question is, it seems we collectively know how to deal with our transportation systems better that the bureaucrats do - having meetings about meetings and then having a meeting about that - then coming out with second rate solutions, having forgotten the original agenda, the coming up with things like "Congestion charge" and "Mobile phone parking payments"...oh and a London-crushing Olympics. All this from a man who doesn't drive, has never and has no idea about traffic mangement.

Let us decide, we clearly know better.

 

A better solution would be to go back to the electric trolleybuses that the Routemasters replaced!  Or rather, modern electric trolleybuses.

London once had the world's largest trolleybus system - until the Routemasters arrived. 

Electrification of urban bus networks is technically practicable using well established technology and economically practicable as the whole life costs of electric operation compare favourably with diesel operation. Cities as diverse as Athens, Arnhem, Beijing Geneva, Lyon, Moscow, Salzburg and Vancouver demonstrate this every day with their trolleybus systems.

Overhead wires as a means of getting energy to a vehicle are around TEN times more efficient than hydrogen fuel [Vancouver tests] - actually probably nearer twenty times if the comparison is with a hydrogen fuelled IC engine.

The UITP (International Association of Public Transport www.uitp.org) says of a trolleybus system that "The overhead lines that give it a constant visual presence in public areas constitute an advantage, not a downside, as the visibly apparent route network improves the accessibility of the public transport system." (Quotation from UITP Report "Development policy for public transport trolleybus subsystems" 2007 www.uitp.org/publications/index2.cfm?id=1).

Modern trolleybuses can and do operate for several kilometres off wire on auxiliary batteries or IC engines, for example in areas like the centres of Rome or Beijing, or to avoid traffic problems. Depots do not need to be wired or even located on a route.

If an internationally renowned historic tourist centre like Salzburg can see the sense of an electric bus system, why not London? 

 

Another bullshit post from an industry insider who we will never see again.

overhead cables throughout london?...can't think of anything worse.  

Yeah - why not - big red buses are great.

Will you have the 21st century equivalent of Blakely?

 Blakey about to shout 'I'LL GET YOU BUTLER'

And while Autocar is at it - some new phone boxes along the lines of the old design and some proper old fashioned post boxes.

I'd also like a return to the days of National Service, rationing and pea soupers.

And finally, a return of the glory days of British engineering and industry.

 

 

 

I feel its a shame that we have to look back to look forward, isnt that what has landed jaguar in its current trouble.  The routemaster, like the leyland national were one off''s, built at a time when we would take risks to be the best, the national 510 engine is a classic example where the risk possibly was slightly misplaced, but both were extremly long lived the routemasters lasted 40 years and the national lasted over 20-25 years some are still in use now.  We should be looking to make now the next great leap and not looking to the past for inspiration, afterall the national and routemaster's were true firsts in the way they were designed built and run, lets do it again, but clothed in a body for the 21st century!

I think it is a very good idea because it is an ICON for the tourists.

Like Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the black cabs,...

A Belgian tourist.

Weel done to you boys at "Autocar towers" for thinking of it but, as ever with these great british ideas, a bit of government backing wouldn't go a miss !

Without red buses in london how will american films show london in a brief shot?  You always have to have a london bus in the background its the rules.

 I actually thought this was a gimmick but reading the mag autocar have really done their homework and thought it through.  Well done boys.

at last - something rational to read about in Britain. Can someone please start a petition on the No.10 website to lobby for this London icon to be brought back - I drove into London for the first time in many years last week - so sad - so much congestion & so many empty bus seats with just a few miserable passengers looking afraid. Technically wise the hydrogen bit is  ambitious - you could have a Lpg-powered one that would be super clean & look almost the same for a fraction of the cost of storing & distributing hydrogen but as a concept its good to start with. (ps. dont be brainwashed by the TfL tossers)