Transport police will replace conductors on new London buses

by Dave Keating | January 8, 2009 at 04:43 am

642 views | 26 Recommendations | 9 comments

New London mayor Boris Johnson's plan to reintroduce the old routemaster buses was fleshed out in a bit more detail today, as the mayor revealed he plans to have the buses stagged by transport police rather than conductors. The routemasters have an open back where people can hop on and off at will, and they require a person to be at that end to help people on and off and collect tickets.

Transport police will be used to replace "old-fashioned" bus conductors on the new Routemaster buses in London, Boris Johnson said today.

The mayor of London said that transport police support officers would help people on and off the back of the new fleet of buses and provide a figure of "authority" for passengers.

Johnson outlined his surprise plans for the staffing of the new bus fleet on the Vanessa Feltz show on BBC Radio London this morning.

The issue of bus conductors was prompted by a question from Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, who appeared on Feltz's show yesterday.

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Uwe Paschen

at 05:35 on January 8th, 2009

I am not sure the Police will like that though.

poor oligarch (not verified)

at 06:25 on January 8th, 2009

I wonder how much the fares will increase by to pay for this?

Iffy (not verified)

at 07:42 on January 8th, 2009

It should be soldiers with machine guns based on the level of violence in London and the suicide bomber threat. More and more, the film Children of Men seems like New Labour's blueprint for Britain, not a dystopic warning shot.

2E0MCA

at 10:46 on January 8th, 2009

There have been revenue earning Routemasters on London's streets for over 50 years (RM1 entered revenue service in February 1956). So the design was clearly a good one. Why reinvent the wheel? - just build a load of new ones to the same design. Unfortunately that is not an option because the design is not suitable for passengers with disabilities.

As for British Transport Police acting as conductors...sounds like a New York type idea to me. Might be a useful way of moving the police to locations around the capital, but to have one on every bus? Yes, where will the money come from bearing in mind that Boris indicated that there was a huge hole in the TfL budget. Perhaps the Brit. Trans. Police budget is over funded and can fill that hole?

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paul_draper2001

at 01:20 on January 9th, 2009

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paul_draper2001

at 13:01 on January 8th, 2009

I don't see anything too awful about this story, it's just sadly a sign of the times that we need people such as the transport police, good thinking.

I also think we'll need as much security in London as possible in 2012.

dowdinsk

at 15:56 on January 8th, 2009

"we'll need as much security in London as possible in 2012" - about 2 billion quids worth for a 5 week party for the rich?

delticalco

at 15:01 on January 8th, 2009

I think the idea is a good one in theory but a bad one in practice. The costs would be huge and I'm not sure re-introducing open platforms in todays 'no win, no fee' culture is a good one. I worked for a bus company in the 1990s that reintroduced conductors as a competitive tool, whilst popular with passengers it did not create any extra revenue and cost considerably more and was discontinued after the experiment finished.

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