Q The recent decision by London Trans' port to switch to
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large-scale operation of one-man, standee single-decker buses is reputed to be in line with Continental policy. In fact, is it not true that double-deckers are replacing single-deckers in many places on the Continent?
A This question does highlight an apparent
anomaly. Although one-man operated standee single-deckers are operated in large numbers on the Continent, a swing to doubledeckers is evident there, Berlin. for example, standardizes on double-decker buses for many of its routes and they are becoming increasingly popular in large towns and cities in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Stockholm is introducing 50 large-capacity British-built double-deckers. Paris is also experimenting with doubledeckers.
However, the London Transport plans are in their early stages and the Board has made it clear that it intends to retain doubledeckers on the main trunk routes. This, in fact, is more or less in line with the developing Continental pattern of services where, in some countries, one-man standee buses will be restricted to shorter, busy routes and doubledeckers employed on the longer heavilytrafficked routes.