ULEZ in london

[Surreyman]

'Red bus' fleets mostly leased and acquired to meet specific contract route awards/renewals, so tied in with Tfl service requirements.
The oldest single deckers are '07/57 reg so coming up for 14 years old, I think someone on this thread said that the maximum age is (was?) 14 years.
Plenty of pre 2007 buses in service in the rest of the country, although as others have said, many London buses see 7 days a week constant service in heavy traffic, so may be 'older' in terms of wear & tear on mechanical units.

 

[cnjb8]

Not so many but there are orders currently in the pipeline, an example would be RATP group who have a sizeable number of electric buses on order which will likeley displace Scania deckers + some E200s.

Will it though? Didn't RATP win a few contracts in the last round of tendering? I might not be remembering right

I get the impression that the single decker fleet in London is getting on a bit. The replacement of them with electric buses will take several years, and in the meantime the fleet is getting older. They may have been upgraded to Euro 6, but are aging...

I agree, we definitely don't aren't seeing the same level of electric single deckers coming in just before Covid as all singles a few years ago

 

[Snow1964]

With Covid and the state of TfLs finances, will we even see many new buses to replace older, now Euro6 compliant buses?

There was not that many new buses introduced in London during 2020 (only something like 250), and based on current tender wins will be about 350 new buses in 2021 (some may slip to early 2022)

But the fleet age profile isn’t even, there were negligible buses introduced from Spring 2006-late 2008 (after low floor conversion), so very few have been hitting the nominal 14 year age limit recently

But there were high numbers of buses introduced 2009-2012 (including the bendy conversions) so these all need replacing. From the 31/3/20 TfL fleet audit (buses in fleet at 31/3/20)
2003-2008 106 double, 186 single decks
2009 551 double, 260 single
2010 460 double, 175 single
2011 630 double, 335 single
2012 659 double, 203 single

Some of these will be replaced by 2020 and 2021 deliveries (and those before mid 2008 generally got withdrawn rather than upgraded), its likely here could be service reductions of 500+ buses, (although unlikely to be announced before May local elections).

However probably still going to need 700+ buses per year 2022-2024 (plus infrastructure to charge all these electric buses), simply to replace those which are deemed too old. So looks like can’t really pause new bus orders, even if finances not healthly. However TfL will probably aim to use newer existing buses where available (but 2013 and 2014 were leaner years for new buses), so short term nowhere near enough suitable buses coming free to fulfil all tenders

 

[MotCO]

There was not that many new buses introduced in London during 2020 (only something like 250), and based on current tender wins will be about 350 new buses in 2021 (some may slip to early 2022)

But the fleet age profile isn’t even, there were negligible buses introduced from Spring 2006-late 2008 (after low floor conversion), so very few have been hitting the nominal 14 year age limit recently

But there were high numbers of buses introduced 2009-2012 (including the bendy conversions) so these all need replacing. From the 31/3/20 TfL fleet audit (buses in fleet at 31/3/20)
2003-2008 106 double, 186 single decks
2009 551 double, 260 single
2010 460 double, 175 single
2011 630 double, 335 single
2012 659 double, 203 single

Some of these will be replaced by 2020 and 2021 deliveries (and those before mid 2008 generally got withdrawn rather than upgraded), its likely here could be service reductions of 500+ buses, (although unlikely to be announced before May local elections).

However probably still going to need 700+ buses per year 2022-2024 (plus infrastructure to charge all these electric buses), simply to replace those which are deemed too old. So looks like can’t really pause new bus orders, even if finances not health.

I've commented before that new tenders are still mixed existing and new buses (possibly more existing than new), so there will be a time when there will not be any existing London-compliant buses available to service these new tenders, so new buses may need to be acquired after all. This in turn will lead to more expensive contracts, which TfL can't afford.

 

[Mikey C]

I've commented before that new tenders are still mixed existing and new buses (possibly more existing than new), so there will be a time when there will not be any existing London-compliant buses available to service these new tenders, so new buses may need to be acquired after all. This in turn will lead to more expensive contracts, which TfL can't afford.

The problem is that with new diesel single deckers being banned, the choice is either existing buses or electric ones, which are both more expensive, but also need major infrastructure improvements to garages

Tendering for that every 15 minutes "social" route in the outer suburbs with electric buses would be a major expense

 

[Surreyman]

Tfl seem to be spreading new Electric bus awards around, so recent awards more in the suburbs, probably due to a mix of: -
1. Routes coming up for renewal.
2. Suitable routes, i.e daily diagrams/time periods so the batteries will last a working day.
3. Infrastructure constraints, electricity supply and/or larger depots more suited to installing charging equipment, i.e recently Northumberland Park (Go-Ahead) and soon to be Fulwell (RATP).
4. Need to be seen to fair to all parts of London.