Wednesday 21 March 2007

The Grande Change!





"It’s time to wave goodbye to the capital’s traditional red double deckers but, there’s no room for sentimentality – London General and Central Buses is en route to the future..." insisted John Trayner to Anna Edwards

The Red London Bus, the grande symbol of London and a major tourist attraction was discommisioned last year in June f
rom London General and London Central Buses'. Undoubtedly this decision saddened many people but according to John Trayner "the Routemaster really had come to the end of its line." There were many reasons why "The Red London Buses" changed; firstly, the routmaster didn't meet the requirements of a disable persons (the Disability Discrimination Act) as you couldn't get a wheelchair on board. Secondly, the open platform door caused many injuries to passengers- they would fall off the back or not get on properly,which led to many serious injuries and fatalities.

Moreover, there are more important factors to consider such as, it is difficult to pair a driver and a conductor when only one person, the driver, can do both jobs at a time as is the case nowadays. A huge problem were the supply of the parts of the buses as they were 40 years old and the original suppliers went out of business years ago, but as John Trayner describes "these vehicles have served the Capital well and have lasted way beyond anyone’s expectations." However, the only advantage about the Routemasters run on environmentally friendly low-sulphur fuel.

The Red London Buses were replaced by artculated bendibuses manufactured by Mercedes in Germany. The public accepted them happily and were suprised by how comfortable and manoeuvrable these 18 metre buses were. The Mercedes Citaro 18 metre long single decker bendibuses have the capacity to carry 150 people. "They are suitable for moving large numbers of people around in open areas where there’s good manoeuvrability,” Trayner explained. The Bendibuses are userfriendly when it comes to a large crowd and the journey needs to be fast. You can board the bus using one of the three doors and an open board policy- where the bus driver takes no money and if you to board the bus the ticket has to be prepaid or bought in advanced from the roadside machine, which helps speed.

Finally, the advertisement for the London bus "getting you where you want when you want" shows that buses may not be as fast as the tube but it drops the passenger closer to its destination. “On 23 April 2004 we carried six million passengers – that’s more than the Tube and the whole of the UK overground rail network put together" argues Trayner.




6 comments:

Mona said...

good article lavina.. keep it up.. :D im waitin for that day whn i become a big person n so then u can rite an article on me.. hows that? lol! :P well all da best with it ;) xxx

Giresh said...

This is exceptional.. who would have thought that a silly girl from Gran Canaria would know so much about the double decker bus !

Keep up the good work

(P.S. God I'm such a nice guy)

Lavin said...

Good work Lavina, useful quotes that makes the article fit in really well.

hina said...

Some amazing facts there lavina. Keep up the great work... some of those articles are really good.
Its interesting the way u've published articles related to history, to reality and written about some basic knowledge. Keep it up!

Srishti said...

oui ma cherie, very well written :D
xxx

Chusanch said...

You may say goodbye to them in London but I am sure you will be able to see them around the world as a tourist service or even worse, punished to be a moving advert...

In Zaragoza we have now 6 double deckers for tourist service. They are modern ones... The rest of the fleet, about 400, are single deckers...