End of the London bendy bus nothing to do with bus accidents

It seems that the death knell has been sounded for the bendy bus in London. In March 2008 the Lord Mayor Ken Livingstone said that there would be no further orders for fleets of the much-maligned replacement of the popular old-fashioned Routemaster. Yet he is adamant that this has nothing to do with criticism, which he believes to be unfounded, that they are responsible for a disproportionate number of bus accidents.

This move comes after a letter the Mayor sent to London newspaper The Evening Standard in November 2007 where he made a staunch defence of bendy buses after they had been criticised for having a higher average incidence of bus accidents than other London buses. Mr Livingstone wrote:

"The fact is that there is no evidence that bendy buses are any less safe than other buses. Of the 10 bus routes with the highest accident rates in London, none are served by bendy buses even though they operate on the busiest routes in Britain and encounter many more road users than many other types of bus.

"Between 1994 and 2006, there were 7 fatalities for every billion passenger journey on a bendy bus, 11 fatalities for every billion passenger journeys on new double and single deckers, and 15 fatalities for every billion passenger journeys on a Routemaster."

Even if Livingstone does not win the 2008 mayoral contest, London commuters can expect to say goodbye to the bendy bus anyway, with the two other major candidates, including Boris Johnson, pledging not only to abandon orders for new fleets of bendy buses but also to actually scrap their use on existing routes.

All this makes the heady days of their introduction in 2001, when they were hailed as a "super bus" capable of carrying as twice as many passengers compared to their double-decker counterparts, seem very distant indeed. However, their large passenger-carrying capacity is, even now, reflected in the fact that they make up only 5% of the London fleet yet carry 9% of all passengers.

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