LT stacks the dec
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LONDON TRANSPORT'S E26m order for 360 double-deck buses for next year will be welcomed with relief at Leyland Bus and Metro-Cammell Weymann, both of which are already working below their optimum production capacity. But, with around 800 buses expected to be surplus to requirements if post-Fares Fair service cuts are implemented, it might appear odd that LT requires any new buses, writes ALAN MILLAR.
LT's memorandum to the Greater London Council, recommending the purchase of the 210 Leyland Titans and 150 MCW Metrobuses (CM, July 3) gives an insight into why the country's largest operator believes it must maintain a vehicle replacement policy, as well as a hint as to the future of that policy. It also shows the in-house attitudes and beliefs which LT's chairmandesignate, Dr Keith Bright, will encounter when he enters his office at 55 Broadway later this year.
The rationale is simple. LT is still determined to rid itself of its Daimler Fleetline double-deckers, the last of which were delivered in 1978, for it has had an uncomfortable relationship with them.
Fleetlines may well perform efficiently in operating conditions at least as arduous as the London suburbs in which LT works, but corporate dislike of the vehicles is so well established that all policy is geared towards getting rid of them, replacing them with sophisticated models favoured by few other operators, and retaining LTdesigned Routemasters built 15 to 24 years ago.
Fleetline replacement has already set LT on a course of reducing its fleet from 2,646 to 750 by the end of this year, and the aim is now to replace them all, along with the 155 Scaniapowered Metropolitan doubledeckers, by 1984.
Given that one-man operation remains at 53 per cent of 170m scheduled miles, and that the four per cent reduction in engineering spares achievable through the purchase of Titans and Metrobuses continues, LT will need 625 new buses in 1983/84.
A higher percentage of o-m-o (60 per cent of 150m miles is considered possible) could raise that figure to 770 buses, as o-m-o is increased in the suburbs and on some quieter inner London routes.
The Routemaster is still king on maintenance and fuel costs: Titan and Metrobus are five to 10 per cent more expensive to operate, and Fleetline and Metropolitan 35 to 40 per cent. According to LT, the new types are £2,500 to £3,000 a year cheaper than Fleetlines, and these figures, together with reduced downtime costs associated with the newer types, mean a capital saving of E2,500 per scheduled bus, and a further maintenance saving of £250 on each bus.
The memorandum does accept that there are other policies which can be followed, but like the politicians it serves, LT has been careful to contrast its preferred policy with those options which sound least attractive.
For instance, there was a GLC suggestion that LT look at the scope for enlarging the singledeck fleet from its end-of-1982 proportion of 20 per cent.
LT's research suggests that where double-deckers have replaced single-deckers, they have attracted three to five per cent more revenue on weekdays and up to 15 per cent more at weekends.
Double-deckers, apparently, are better value for money where the average load of passengers exceeds 10, but LT admits that it does not know whether the lower capital cost of a single-decker like the Leyland National would offset the revenue disadvantage. Nor does it say whether traffic is lost when single-deckers replace doubledeckers.
Leyland and MCW offered cheaper alternative models to the Titan and Mark One Metrobus. The Olympian, with separate chassis, front-mounted radiator, and simpler front suspension, is more widely accepted by British operators than the Titan, and can be bodied by most coachbuilders. The Metrobus 2 has an identical chassis to the Mark One, but has a lighter and cheaper body incorporating far fewer parts. It is the model which MCW's provincial customers now favour.
LT has rejected both models, alleging that each type would cost it £1.5m in second-line maintenancecosts. It admits that it has tried neither model, but says there would be a techni
cal risk, albeit low, in buyin either.
However, it is much more con cerned that its two-type stan dardisation policy would IN upset, that there would be addi tional costs associated will providing technical data, part: lists, additional maintenanci facilities, stores holdings, an storage area, and additiona training for works and garag( staff.
Having made clear that it see: no alternative to the presen choices of vehicles, it sets ou three possible steps forward.
One is to buy 360 buses ilex year, and a balance, as yet uncle fined, in 1984. This, it says would retain momentum an( give order-starved manufactur ers some continuity, withou putting at risk the future of eithe Titan or Mark One Metrobus.
Option two of buying 200 tc 250 buses a year for three year would mean that LT would plea the order with one manufacture each year, and one of the twc models would probably bi dropped. Fleetlines would 131 kept for a year longer, and tota costs by 1995 would be in creased by more than £0.5m.
Option three would keep al Fleetlines in service until 1981 when their working life would bi up, which would mean that thi worsening problems would bl offset against the deferment o the substantial capital outlay. L" would also be unable to take ad vantage of the new bus gran scheme which ends in Marcl 1984.
With such information befon them, it is hardly surprising tha the GLC transport committee ap proved the first option, and tha there were several councillor who felt the programme ough perhaps to be accelerated to taki greater advantage of the bu. grant scheme.
Beyond 1985, only one thing i:. clear at present. LT consider: that re-establishment of a Lon don bus factory, as desired b) the present GLC, is unrealisti( when there is so much surplu: manufacturing capacity ir Britain.
It is not committing itself tc replacing its beloved Routemas. ters, but is backing down frorr its earlier hints of their perpetua retention. Zonal fares and thE improved performance of Titer and Metrobus have altered thE 1980 balance which favoured retaining Routemasters, and thE longer-term prospects for 10C per cent o-m-o are "currently being reviewed" with the resultE by the autumn.