RATP Dev has confirmed that Elaine Holt has been appointed its UK Rail Franchise Director and will lead its work to pre-qualify for London’s Crossrail operator concession. Holt most recently led National Express’s bid for the Great Western rail franchise after being CEO of Directly Operated Railways, and Chairman of East Coast, from when the government took over the operation in 2009 until 2011. Holt started her career at British Airways in 1987 and worked in a variety of senior

In the changes following the moves of Howard Smith and Howard Collins, Director of Strategy and Service Development Gareth Powell  (pictured) will take overall responsibility for London Rail, alongside his existing responsibilities. Jonathan Fox will be the Acting Director of London Rail and report to Powell.  Rory O’Neill will become the Acting Director of the DLR, and along with Danny Price, Head of the Emirates Airline cable car and Sharon Thompson, the Director of Tramlink,

London’s Crossrail project has moved closer towards its opening for  services with the appointment of Howard Smith as Operations Director. Smith is currently Chief Operating Officer for Rail at Transport for London, and has successfully led the £1bn East London Line extension project as well as the development, launch and operation of London Overground and management of its operating concession with operating concession MTR/DB. Smith will now be responsible for leading the dev

According to National Rail’s Journey Planner, a simple trip in the Greater London area from Watford Junction to Woking requires two mainline trains and an Underground ride. First, there is a Midland Mainline (or London Overground)train to London Euston, followed by a transfer to London Underground’s Northern Line to Waterloo, followed by a second transfer at Waterloo to a Southwest Trains service to Woking. This journey requires coordinating three train schedules, passing through up

Delivering major city rail schemes is so expensive, complicated and integral to city economies that it is hard to believe that a purely private sector approach to finance could ever deliver them, even in an era of shrinking public sector activity. But it will be a new generation of public sector development bodies, with new powers and financial models that will generally drive them forward. Some examples of the new approaches are beginning to emerge. The massive Grand Paris Express project 

D espite having historically one of the most comprehensive of the world’s urban and commuter rail systems, London has been playing catch up to Paris, and indeed other cities with S-Bahn-type railways, on its rail network development. While Paris has a mature cross city rail network in the form of its five RER lines, and is now moving on to developing its Grand Paris Express network of orbital super metro lines, London is trying to do both at once, and coming from a long way behind. Thames

Biting the bullet on expensive, transformational, railway schemes is something that mainland European governments have been good at, as exemplified by the development of national high speed rail networks in various countries. But in France attention has turned to capital city Paris, and bullets haven’t come much bigger and faster than that of Grand Paris Express, a plan to revolutionise urban railways there, with a price tag to match. Spiralling costs and delays in estimated completion dat

Though Paris and London have attracted attention by developing their regional heavy rail networks to supplement existing tube/metro lines through new cross-city tunnels, they are not the only cities who have taken their city railways beyond the traditional model of large stations at surface level. Elsewhere in Europe Vienna is replacing its South terminal station with a new central Hauptbahnhof station which will link together the routes which converge on Vienna, including international servic

Plans for strategic rail network development in London and Paris tell a tale of two cities facing similar challenges. Both have realised that radial rail transport terminating at central locations means massive numbers of passengers overloading local distributor networks of buses or existing underground metros. And both have realised that many travellers are actually trying to get from one side of the city to the other, and don’t want to change between trains which terminate in the city ce

The majority of the world’s population now live in urban areas. That point was reached in 2008, according to official UN statistics, as the continuing migration from the countryside and population growth within metropolitan areas have combined to  change the way the majority of the world’s citizens live. 3.3 billion of us now live in urban areas. In 1950 there was just one city of over 10m people – New York. Now there are 27, and experts believe that by the end of 2015, t

IIn quitting London bus operations, UK-based transport group First has made good on its promise to raise £100m through disposal of non-core operations, with the surprise sale of practically all its London bus operations to two foreign groups for £80m. But it raises some interesting questions about the difference in approach to tendered markets between UK groups and those from the rest of the world. First is to sell eight of its London bus garages – five with 494 vehicles in We

London’s transport commissioner Peter Hendy has been knighted for services to transport and the community in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours. He successfully delivered the transport services for last year’s Olympic and Paralympic games. ...as Collins off to Sydney Howard Collins, London Underground’s chief operating officer, who has received an OBE for services to the London 2012 Games, is leaving to join the newly created Sydney Trains in Australia, as chief execu

What is claimed to be the world’s first fully mobile and wireless information display system is now being offered as a innovative new communications solution to transport operators, replacing printed posters and white boards Developed by Met Systems who have managed the design, supply and installation of ESUB’s (Electronic Service Update Boards) across the London Underground network, WiSI is the future of standardised on-station communications claims the company. Created to direct

Any rail journey involving interchange across London is potentially a problem to explain to travellers. It is likely that business is lost to rail because users are baffled by proposed journey times that are longer than they often are in reality, and because the convenience of a high-frequency service is undersold by giving specific connecting times when they are not needed. It is amongst the unaddressed issues on the National Rail website. Generous margins may protect the train companies from

A number of European cities have significance and development activity which means that their leaders are key European transport figures in their own right. London and Paris are two such cities whose chiefs appear earlier in our listing.  Mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London’s commissioner Peter Hendy have forged a successful partnership between elected politician and public servant that has delivered a generally well regarded , system though relations between  Pierre M

UK transport is heavily influenced, as elsewhere, by political leaders. Transport problems and challenges exist at both a national and local level and it is Boris Johnson Mayor of London who New Transit believes has continued to be most significant in his interventions in transport over the past year and hence included in our top dozen power people. He faced an election last year against his old adversary Ken Livingstone, which he narrowly won, and then gained the reflected glory of both the Oly

A group of fifty leading senior executives and managers form this year’s New Transit UK passenger transport providers Power List. There are several changes from last year as new appointments have lifted individuals into positions of greater responsibility and others have moved out. Four of the most senior UK passenger transport group heads are featured in our overall top 12 people listing on the previous pages- David Martin at Arriva, Sir Brian Souter at Stagecoach, Tim O’Toole at F

London bus users now have an alternative to topping up their Oyster card or having the right change with the introduction of MasterCard PayPass technology using contactless bank cards. From December, they have been able to pay with a contactless MasterCard or Maestro card, charged the same fare as Oyster for pay-as-you-go tickets, rather than the more expensive cash fare. Marion King who heads MasterCard’s UK & Ireland operation said, “travellers can now pay for their travel usi

Crossrail 2, the plan for a new south-west to north-east line under London, is to be promoted as a regional rail scheme rather than a London-focused metro. Business lobby group London First, Transport for London and Network Rail have all been examining the options for the project which has been on and off the drawing board for more than half a century. It was once known as the Chelsea-Hackney link, living in the same scheme pool as the Victoria Line crossing London from Brixton to Walthamstow w

A potential contradiction lies at the heart of current developments in heavily used urban public transport:  Capacity versus comfort. To be popular, and play its part in the functioning of cities, most practitioners would agree that public transport in cities should be attracting motorists from their use of private cars, by providing a high quality alternative. To be cost effective however, particularly at peak times, each vehicle also needs to shift high volumes of people. The balancing

There were lively debates  on the future of smart ticketing and payment at two key sessions in the Travel 2020 conference. Transport Minister Norman Baker, and Jenni Borg, his senior civil servant responsible for the topic, both came under pressure to move away from current commitments to a single smartcard technology solution and embrace new options for the EMV bank card and mobile phone payments already being implemented within TfL and some train and bus operators. The first indications

T he UK led the way in franchising of passenger train operations, but its experience has hardly become the ‘How To’ guide for the rest of Europe. The abandonment of the West Coast franchise is just the latest round of franchising that has fallen apart in the harsh light of reality. The problems, blamed on a flawed assessment process, but also raising questions about staffing resources within the Department for Transport (DfT) and bidders’ ability to predict revenues over the 1

Will the next generation of London’s tube trains have driver’s cabs or not? There seems to be some back peddling within Transport for London over an apparent earlier commitment to push ahead with automation like that already under way in Paris (New Transit November/December 2011). London Mayor Boris Johnson, before his re-election to the post this summer, promised never to order tube trains with conventional driving cabs again, though it was conveniently unclear what he meant by th

Success in a nice problem to have, but finding the best solution to the problem of a lack of capacity in the face of rising passenger numbers can prove challenging. A number of rapid transit systems across Europe are facing that challenge in different ways. Introducing Bus Rapid Transit has a record of building the market by changing perceptions of conventional bus services, and in the UK, the Cambridgeshire guided busway opened last year has proved a real hit. It carried its one-millionth pass

Wireless charging systems for buses are already in use in the Italian cities of Turin and Genoa. The UK’s first electric bus service to use inductive wireless charging is to be launched next summer in Milton Keynes. The project will see eight all-electric buses replace diesel vehicles on route 7 operated by Arriva. Rather than having to have their batteries recharged at the depot, the vehicles will use inductive charging technology to recharge on the street. Power transmitted from a pri

Countdown at-stop real time information system developer Telent have launched a BUStop London app, based on the software it developed under a contract awarded in 2009 by Transport for London (TfL). The new app allows users viewings of services at their nearest bus stops. The travel options are designed for seamless integration with social networking sites and in-app sending of emails and SMS messages. It also allows users to set customisable alerts to tell them when their bus is approaching a se

The digital revolution has unlocked a rush of new information systems that offer diverse ways of putting both encyclopaedic and highly specific rail and bus service information in front of users. But by their very diversity and variety such messages risk being overlooked in the resultant potential ‘information overload’. Sometimes, a single simple overriding ‘alert’ or ‘announcement’ needs to get through above the rest. The basic means to do this - the publi

An invitation to contribute to New Transit from my perspective as an information and systems design specialist came just as Britain’s transport network was being put to a significant test in the form of handling the intensive movement needs of the Olympics. It was a perfect showcase for a whole range of issues affecting transport in the new digital information era - and the implications for those who run the system, and travel on it. So I can’t resist the opportunity to look at the

There is an increasing understanding for those who are connected with information provision that the way people perceive and use it differs markedly. Both psychology and physical factors come into play, with some categories of user much more comfortable with a particular form of information provision or simply unable to access others due to their health, age or other handicaps. Ensuring that public transport information is available to all has particularly to acknowledge that numbers of potent

Relatively short connections in the transport network can have a disproportionate significance in both addressing end-to-end journey requirements, and complementing the accessibility needs of large activity sites and potential new development opportunities. In this field, some recent innovative systems are showing exciting potential to tackle problems in new ways – and even more economically and rapidly than hitherto. A group of emerging, new generation short transport concepts are offe

Britain’s tramway systems lag behind those in mainland Europe but at least some are growing. Six new trams at London Tramlink have enabled service frequencies to increase by 50% over the busiest section of routes centred on Croydon, south London. Tramlink currently carries 29 million passengers per year, up 45% from the figures in 2000, when it opened, without any increase in network length. The new Variobahn trams cost £16.3m (of which £3m was contributed by Croydon Council)

The new cable car across the Thames in East London has joined the capital’s transport system in time for the Olympics. The five-minute 1km trip, costing £3.20 with an Oyster card, links the Greenwich Peninsula to Docklands. Supplied by Doppelmayr, it was built by Mace working with Watson Steel, URS Scott Wilson, lead consultant; Buro Happold, structural engineer: and architects Aedas and Wilkinson Eyre. Officially opened by Mayor Boris Johnson, the cable car connects two Olympic ven

It is a win-win situation when the engineering, commercial and marketing departments of passenger transport organisations can find common cause in their business objectives, and a shared message to present to the public and political decision-makers. But the idea of ‘going green’ is increasingly providing just that opportunity - with improved economic and environmental credentials going hand-in-hand. Applying smarter thinking about how bus and rail systems are designed, equipped and

Having spent his first term modifying the congestion charge, delivering the London cycle hire scheme and ordering prototypes for his new London bus, Boris Johnson is turning his attention more heavily to rail having secured his re-election as London Mayor in May. He is seeking to address the problem of strikes and poor reliability on the London Underground, and to extend his responsibility for suburban rail services. Giving evidence to the London Assembly, Johnson said he had set Transport for

When Transport for London launches its Future Ticketing Programme (FTP) this summer, it will be the first system of its kind in the world. London will be the first city to offer EMV contactless bankcard ticketing across its entire range of transport service, and the first to develop an associated account-based fares system allowing new ticket types to be offered across all modes. The creation of the back office required to process the data and enable fares rules to be applied under an accoun

A project involving the Association of Train Operating Companies has begun to consider building on the UK’s Rail Settlement Plan philosophy to offer payment reconciliation across all modes of transportThe project – South East Fares and Ticketing (SEFT) – was launched following the announcement in the Chancellor’s November budget that £45m would be provided as part funding for implementation of ITSO smartcard rail ticketing across the south east. While SEFT began

There is a new kind of transport enthusiast, the “app collector”. I recently realised that my own collection of travel apps looks small when compared with that of an avid collector. There is an increasing range of apps that address similar travel information challenges in different ways. How many do I actually need? Looking on the Android store for “bus London”, for example, there are 31 apps that give bus departures in London and all have at least 3 stars, with mo

Transport system users face many choices in how they travel. In mode, route, types of service, price for different timings and speeds, payment mechanism and loyalty scheme discounts, and any enhancements they may wish to add, from class of service to seat reservation and catering extras. Finding out all these options to construct a journey, and its cost, has always been a challenge, with no comprehensive information point generally available, even within single operating organisations, about

Why is he on the list? Leads arguably the premier urban transport authority in Europe. What kind of year has he had? A huge year. Transport for London unveiled plans for the world’s first citywide contactless bankcard EMV payment system; the new version of the Routemaster was launched; and Johnson’s idea for a Thames estuary airport began to gain ground. Olympic plans are ahead of schedule and promise to leave a lasting legacy on demand management and communication systems as we

Six months away from the start of the Olympic Games in London, concerns remain at the ability of the transport system to perform at the required world leading level. A huge effort has been made by London to take the opportunity of the Games to showcase both the city and its transport system, with an emphasis on providing public transport services that cover the vast majority of the needs of participants and visitors. However, there are doubts – including amongst professionals involved

FirstGroup has appointed Richard Parry in the newly created role in the West Coast Intercity rail franchise bid team. Parry joins the group after 19 years at Transport for London (TfL) in a range of senior posts. He was most recently the body’s deputy managing? director and director of strategy and commercial for TfL's London? Underground and rail divisions. ?Vernon Barker, managing director First UK Rail, said: “The wealth of experience that Richard brings will be invaluable? to

Recent months have seen the arrival in London of the so-called Borismaster - the new Routemaster bus for London initiated by Mayor Boris Johnston - and the unveiling at the National Exhibition Centre in November of what could perhaps be called the Raymaster - the new bus for Nottingham, in which I have myself played a role. It’s a restyling of the Tempo that I worked on for trentbarton and Optare. There’s also been launches of prototypes of the ‘European Bus System of the Fut

Which world city has today’s largest metro? It’s a question that is defined by the word ‘today’. If I’d asked you ten, or even five years ago, the answer would have been very different! But since 2010 the record holder has been the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai. With 420 kilometers (261 miles) Shanghai has surpassed London and New York to grab the title of the world’s largest metro as measured by route kilometers (or miles). With multiple sections of triple

More than ever, the successful delivery of quality public transport is in the hands of leaders, visionaries and innovators who see a positive – and different – future for bus, tram, metro, rail and other increasingly varied elements of a passenger transport system that provides a real and complete alternative to dependency on the private car. Massive business activity, a huge part of national and local government responsibility, and a major opportunity for smart suppliers is offered

Transport secretary Justine Greening is to give serious consideration to plans for a new hub airport in the Thames Estuary unveiled in November by a team including internationally renowned architect Lord Foster.  A Department for Transport (DfT) spokesman said that, although the government had ruled out expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, a Thames Estuary airport would “be considered as part of our wider review of aviation policy”. London mayor Boris Johnson

The Travel 2020 event at the beginning of November featured two days of cutting edge information exchange and debate about the future of passenger transport service provision, information and payment systems and the management of customer relationships. The tone for discussions amongst the audience of transport and travel professionals was set by the first morning’s  plenary presentations by transport minister Norman Baker and Stagecoach chief executive Sir Brian Souter. Baker outlin

Technological visions and applications for passenger transport are being offered with increasing confidence, and the evidence from the Travel 2020 event in November is that the speed of their development is accelerating. Two weeks before the event, on 17th October, saw the official launch of London Countdown II from Transport For London.  This enables access to real time information on bus arrival predictions for all London’s 19,000 bus stops via the web, mobile web and SMS. A healthy

Though BAE Systems is a UK multinational, which has harnessed capability from across its varied industrial experience to develop a leading role in power systems for transport, the core development of hybrid buses took place in the USA, where BAE Systems acquired Lockheed Martin Control Systems over a decade ago. A global pioneer was New York City Transit, which introduced heavy-duty hybrid technology in 1998 with four new Orion hybrid buses with the Lockheed System. Under an ambitious project

It’s over 50 years ago since the iconic London double deck open rear platform Routemaster entered service. Incredibly, examples are still running in London, albeit on two heritage routes. Other examples from the one-time fleet of over two and a half thousand have been sold around the world and still ply their trade in various ways. Londoners - and Britons -  have loved this bus, and no image of London has been complete without it, as attested by the  subject of our big picture c

The commissioning of the first automatic trains on the Paris Metro’s oldest and most popular line at the beginning of November  was a world first for operator RATP in terms of technology and organization. For the first time, an existing subway line has been automated without any major interruption to services. Until December 2012, when all trains will be automated, RATP is also tackling the challenge of combining both driverless automatic and manually driven trains on the same line.

Manchester and London are vying to become the UK’s smartphone public transport commuter capital with new schemes to deliver high quality real time information to users. Working with technology service company Logica, Realtime information  specialist Vix-ACIS and First Manchester buses, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) plans a 2012 rollout of a ‘personal satnav’. It follows on from the Technology Strategy Board co-funded 18-month Empowered Traveller project, whic

Global airline Emirates and Transport for London have agreed a sponsorship deal for London’s cable car Thames river crossing which is scheduled for completion next summer. The link, which will provide a direct connection between the Greenwich Peninsula and Royal Victoria Docks, will be known as the Emirates Air Line in a 10-year deal worth £36m. It will connect two of London’s biggest venues, the O2 entertainment centre and Excel exhibition site. The two new stations are set to

A fleet of 21 Stagecoach buses fitted with BAE System’s hybrid electric propulsion system is now in service across Sheffield. The launch of the double deck buses, powered by BAE System’s HybriDrive® Series system, took place on 18 September. This follows the rolling out of similar hybrid electrically powered buses in London, Reading, Oxford, Manchester, Newcastle, Hull and Edinburgh over the past 18 months. Meanwhile, bus operator London United has reported that its fleet of 27

Six longer trams have been ordered for Croydon to allow a more frequent service on the busiest parts of the network. The trams are 32 metres long, making them 2.5m longer than existing vehicles, and are air-conditioned and low-floor to allow better access. The Variobahn model trams, to be built in Germany by Stadler, are each made up of five sections with wide gangways giving them a more spacious interior. To accommodate the longer vehicles, tramstops and the depot will be modified. The con

Management consultancy Boxwood has appointed Terry Morgan as a non-executive board director. Morgan’s role will involve deepening the company’s knowledge on transport and infrastructure. Since 2009 Morgan has been chairman of Crossrail, the £14.9bn project sponsored by the DfT and TfL. Prior to this, he was chief executive of Tube Lines, and before that group managing director, operations for BAE Systems. He is currently President of the Chartered Management Institute. Other

Andrew Wolstenholme takes over as the new chief executive of Crossrail at the end of August. He was previously director of innovation and strategic capability with Balfour Beatty, prior to which he was project director for the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5, and also acted as construction director on the Heathrow Express Rail Link and was BAA’s director of capital projects. He will oversee the construction of the £16bn Crossrail project opening at the end of the decade, which w

Oyster cards can now be bought from ticket machines at almost every station on the London Underground network. The machines, fitted with a new dispensing mechanism , can issue Oysters cards as quickly as paper tickets, said a Transport for London spokeswoman. Some 400 Oyster dispensing machines, upgraded by Cubic Transportation Systems, are in operation across the Tube network, with at least one machine at every station expect Roding Valley. Each of the upgraded machines can hold 400 Oyster ca

The long-term strategy for developing the rail network in London and the south-east has been published. With the number of passengers travelling into London, especially at peak times, set to grow significantly by 2031, Network Rail’s London and South East Route Utilisation Strategy identifies ways to boost capacity, improve journeys and increase connectivity across the region. Produced in partnership with the rail industry, the Department for Transport and Transport for London, the strate

Edinburgh City Council seems set to continue with the city’s troubled tram project and reject a call for a referendum on the project’s future. The council’s decision to build the line only as far as St Andrew’s Square in the city centre, rather than to Newhaven on the Firth of Forth as originally envisaged, is to be confirmed at the next meeting of council on 25 August. Confirmation of this depends on further information regarding costs, timescales and associated risk

New approaches to passenger transport provision and use are emerging in a variety of ways and a range of situations. Some are coming from an institutional level through the initiatives of large public authorities (mainly cities) or corporations (like transport vehicle makers). Others are more local projects to “join up” pieces of the jigsaw or add helpful new elements to the offer. 1. Transport for London Transport for London has promoted a widening definition of collective transpo

There is a potential revolution on the cards in how customers are offered their choices of how to travel. Rather than be faced with a myriad of options by different operators, each one of which offers an individual journey and requires separate research for information and a purchase transaction, the alternative could be a single source for the right combination to meet a traveller’s personal needs. Information is already being presented in multi-modal integrated forms with journey plann

Why are the terms ‘innovative procurement’ and ‘strategic alignment’ ringing in the ears of transport scheme promoters and project managers?  Perhaps it’s because funding bodies have identified procurement processes and delivery arrangements as a significant opportunity for efficiency gains, cost savings and effective risk management based on emerging new understanding and experience of how effective relationships and working arrangements deliver the best outco

Crossrail has appointed Andrew Wolstenholme, currently director of innovation and strategic capability at Balfour Beatty, as its new chief executive. His previous experience includes acting as project director for the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5, and overseeing construction of the £4bn terminal on time on budget. He was also construction director on the Heathrow Express Rail Link as BAA’s director of capital projects. Wolstenholme (right) begins his job at Crossrail in Se

Mott MacDonald has been working with Transport for London (TfL) to develop the cable car that will run across the River Thames connecting Greenwich and the Royal Victoria Docks. The consultancy’s role involved specialist engineering support on route options, building services, utilities and design coordination. It also managed ground investigations, carried out an environmental impact assessment and acted as TfL’s technical advisor during procurement of the design and build contrac

The tens of thousands of passengers using Clapham Junction every day are benefitting from improved access, less congestion and improved facilities following the official opening of the new entrance and nine new lifts at the station on 19 May. The upgrade — funded by Department for Transport, South West Trains, Wandsworth council, Transport for London, Network Rail and the Railway Heritage Trust — also includes new ticketing facilities, travel information screens and toilets in a fu

Transport for London and developer Treasury Holdings are starting a public consultation on the proposed 3km extension of the Northern line from Kennington to Battersea Power Station, to be funded by developer contributions. In the first stage of the public consultation process in 2010, local residents were asked by Treasury Holdings to comment on four possible route options, all of which ran from Kennington to Battersea Power Station. The preferred option was the route via south Nine Elms. If t

Surplus light rail vehicles from Edinburgh’s troubled tram scheme could be sold off to finance the ailing scheme, but any sale would require permission from the Scottish Government, it has emerged. Up to 20 trams would be surplus to requirements in the reduced tram scheme should the line be built only as far as St Andrew Square. The city council has indicated that is exploring “all sensible options” to help recoup public funds in the truncated light rail scheme. One possible

The Department for Transport has announced how its £46m Green Bus Fund has been distributed. The fund will result in 542 new hybrid and electric low carbon buses being introduced in England by March 2012. With the money paid to 20 operators and six local authorities as part payment for the vehicles. “Low carbon buses emit around 30 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than standard diesel buses and use around a third less fuel – that is why it was so important to kick-start

The shortlists for the East Anglia and West Coast rail franchise contracts and the latest London bus tender results illustrate that the UK transport market is now attracting the most intense levels of competition in its 20 year history of being an open market. In the case of the rail franchise shortlists, the interesting thing is not who made them (see panel), but the companies that did not. They include the Spanish and Italian state railways, who were making their first forays into the UK, Deut

Transport for London has set out plans to make an extra £2.6bn of efficiency savings before 2018 in order to protect investment in frontline services. Total efficiencies are now expected to deliver savings of £7.6bn during the period. Major cost reductions highlighted by TfL in its new business plan include: £400m from ticket office changes driven by a reduction in 800 management and operations roles £375m from efficiencies in IT systems £460m in bu

In preparation for the Olympics, BTP has recruited two Malinois (Belgian Shepherd dogs) to its Explosives Search Dog (ESD) section. Their arrival brings to eight the number of passive detection dogs. This will increase to 10 by the time of the Games. The dogs can work in a static position or on the move as they pass through crowds, to monitor the environment and luggage as well as detecting a wide range of explosives. Their effectiveness was tested in trials carried out in 2006 with the Departme

A unique policing environment, the transport system has a unique set of needs. To meet them, an independent body, British Transport Police (BTP), monitors the tracks, trains and stations, and provides a vital service to rail and other operators, their staff and passengers in making the system secure and safe. Chief Constable Andy Trotter has been at its helm for for the past 18 months, and for five years prior to that was BTP’s Deputy Chief. “We are a normal police force now operati

How should a modern consumer industry set its objectives for providing its users with the services they want, retaining business and winning new custom? The passenger transport industry has its own well-established way:  find out what matters most to existing customers, measure performance in delivering it, and get that performance right. This has led to punctuality and reliability taking centre stage, coming through in survey after survey as the most important issue to passengers, and the

Why is he on the list? London mayor Boris Johnson has described Ranger, a former transport consultant, as his “transport brain”. What kind of year has he had? Ranger left his job as a transport consultant to join Team Boris in May 2008. Transport is one of the key areas that the mayor of London has influence over and Ranger is at the heart of it - both as a frontman for the media or a behind the scenes fixer. What’s coming up in 2011? Ongoing industrial disputes, the e

Why is he on the list? DB Regio UK, a subsidiary of German state railway company DB, owns Chiltern Railways, DB Tyne and Wear Ltd and 50% of London Overground. What kind of year has he had? Shooter began 2010 with the news that he had been awarded a CBE for services to the railway industry in the New Year’s Honours List. A month later in February, Shooter unveiled Chiltern’s £250m Evergreen III upgrade plan, which is intended to increase its share of the London-Birmingham r

Why is he on the list? RMT is the dominant union for rail station staff, Network Rail infrastructure workers and Tube workers. What kind of year has he had? Combative. Crow appears very much at home in the them-versus-us environment of cuts. His most high profile battle has been with Transport for London over staffing levels on the London Underground. It resulted in four 24-hour strikes in 2010. What’s coming up in 2011? Crow may exert some influence over Sir Roy McNulty’s plans

Why is she on the list? The Chipping Barnet MP Villiers is the transport minister responsible for rail, London (including Crossrail) and aviation. What kind of year has she had? Mixed. Villiers will have been delighted to become a minister but the moment must have been tinged with disappointment at missing out on the top job at the Department for Transport. Villiers served as shadow secretary of state for transport for almost three years prior to last year’s election, but it was Philip

Why is he on the list? Brown heads London Underground, which carries one billion passengers a year. He is also MD of London Rail, overseeing many projects including the London Overground, the East London Line, expansion of the Docklands Light Railway, and the roll-out of Oyster ticketing to rail services. What kind of year has he had? The former Heathrow Airport MD has been in the spotlight as a result of sustained industrial action by Tube workers. He has also added London Rail to his res

Why is he on the list? Brown is responsible for London’s 8,000-vehicle bus network, street management, the congestion charge, taxis, river services, dial-a-ride and Victoria Coach Station. What kind of year has he had? Brown has been implementing the policies of London mayor Boris Johnson - withdrawing bendy buses, pushing forward with the ‘Son of Routemaster’, introducing the cycle hire scheme and axing the western extension of the congestion charging zone. What’

Why is he on the list? If it moves in London, Hendy is responsible for it. He has served as the city’s Transport Commissioner since 2006. What kind of year has he had? Hendy was recruited from the private sector by former mayor Ken Livingstone, but Boris Johnson has been happy to retain Ken’s man as transport supremo. Hendy’s experience has been invaluable to Johnson as he seeks to push forward major projects like Crossrail while cutting back on spending. Hendy’s othe

Why is he on the list? Johnson is mayor of London and chairman of Transport for London, the city’s transport co-ordinating body. What kind of year has he had? Transport is the area over which the mayor has real power and influence. Johnson has slashed budgets at TfL but has delivered on his promises to remove bendy buses, extend Oyster to rail services and scrap the Western extension of the congestion charging zone. Work has also been progressing on his ‘Son of Routemaster’

Why is he on the list? O’Toole is the new chief executive of FirstGroup, the UK’s largest operator of bus and rail services. Aberdeen-based FirstGroup has a fleet of 8,500 buses across the country and operates four rail franchises - ScotRail, First Great Western, First Capital Connect and First TransPennine Express. What kind of year has he had? It’s been a huge year for the former London Underground boss. In June, the American was appointed as FirstGroup’s chief op

Why is he on the list? Souter remains the heartbeat of Stagecoach and a highly influential figure within the industry. He remains a free spirit who is willing to speak his mind and put money behind his ideas. Together with his sister, Ann Gloag, he still owns around a quarter of Stagecoach. The Perth-based group operates two rail franchises and two tram systems. It also operates a fleet of 8,000 buses in England, Scotland and Wales. Souter also has a 30% stake in Falkirk-based Alexander Dennis,

Transport for London is placing increased emphasis on finding sites for its cycle hire scheme at or near railway stations. The docking stations at Waterloo have proved the most popular of the 360 across London, with an average of 5,740 hires/month. Strong demand also being recorded at the other stations where the scheme is in operation – King’s Cross, London Bridge and Liverpool Street. “We didn’t start out looking at it as a way for people to complete their train jou

In anticipation of growing demand for hybrid-powered buses in the UK and Europe, BAE Systems has invested around £7m in a state-of-the-art service facility for HybriDriveTM system, in Rochester, Kent. The facility has the space to accommodate a single deck bus, but this area is currently housing an armoured personnel carrier. Such is the nature of BAE Systems’ diverse £22bn business. The company is best known for its work in the defence, security and aerospace sectors, and

Transport for London (TfL) is planning to run more tram services by leasing up to ten additional trams for the London Tramlink network that covers Croydon and Wimbledon. The vehicles will be either new build or second hand that can be modified at reasonable cost. Companies have been invited to submit proposals to supply the new trams which, subject to funding being confirmed, would increase the frequency of services on the busiest route which runs between central Croydon and Elmers End. The

The delivery of the Crossrail project has moved forward with the news that the procurement process to purchase new trains for the route has got under way. To deliver Crossrail services to the 37 stations along the route, around 60 new trains will be required, boosting London's rail capacity by 10%. Each train will be will be around 200 metres in length and able to carry up to 1,500 passengers. A notice has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union covering the combined procu

Three-car trains have been launched on the Docklands Light Railway from Stratford to Lewisham with the extra carriage increasing capacity by 50% for each train during the morning peak. The roll-out comes as demand for DLR services continues to grow and the network gets ready for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and an expected 500,000 people per day.  Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor's transport adviser, said: "Increasing capacity on the Docklands Light Railway is part of the Mayor's

A new report from the London Assembly has set out key areas for improving London's cycle hire and cycle superhighway schemes if they are to maximise their objectives and prove value for money.  The report by the Assembly’s transport committee enthusiastically supports the cycle hire scheme but is less clear that the cycle superhighways are so far achieving their goals. It also identifies a number of questions about the quality of the operation of the schemes and their funding arrange

The secretary of state for transport has announced plans for a major investment in Britain's railways. Philip Hammond has confirmed the full completion of the Thameslink and Crossrail programmes and announced plans for the procurement of 2,000 new carriages for use across the network. However, Hammond revealed that the delivery of the Thameslink programme will be "re-profiled" to achieve completion in 2018. In a written statement issued this morning, he said that delivery of the or

London mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London today announced that the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme will be opened up to casual users from December 3, allowing everyone instant access to the scheme. As of this date anyone with a Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card will be able to go to their nearest docking station and follow the simple on screen instructions at the terminal to release a bike. Once the user has purchased their access period (for either 24 hours or seven days) the firs

Work will get underway later this month on a dramatic facelift of London Bridge bus station. The new look bus station, set to open in May 2012, will have more space for buses and taxis, improved waiting facilities and an improved road layout to ease congestion.  The upgrade, which will also include improvements to the train station concourse, will make the area more open, attractive and welcoming to passengers. The new bus station was part of the planning agreement for the development o

Go Ahead has announced the retirement of chief executive Keith Ludeman next year. He will be succeeded by David Brown, the present managing director of surface transport at Transport for London. Brown will join the London-based group as deputy chief executive on April 1, 2011 and will assume the office of Go Ahead chief executive following the retirement of Ludeman on July 4. David Brown has 27 years’ transport experience, having started his career as a London Transport trainee in 1983.

The media poured en-masse into the London Transport Museum’s Acton Depot in mid-November to view the full-size mock-up of Boris Johnson’s New Bus for London project. And it was clear that Boris was as happy as a sand boy to see a full scale recreation of his election pledge, sorry, pet project. But perhaps he was a little too enthusiastic? Jumping on the back of the mock-up he firmly grasped the centre pole which, perhaps inevitably given that it is still a mock-up made of lots of f

George Osborne came of age on October 20. Whatever one may think about the rights and wrongs of the spending review, I could not but help admire his performance in the Commons when he delivered his statement. In many respects it was nakedly political, with the objective seemingly to taunt and goad Labour rather than to rise above party politics for a spending review that is one of the most severe in living memory. George Osborne has shown his political street fighting abilities, in spades. Stil

For supporters of smartcard ticketing, progress towards introducing it on local bus services has been painfully slow. However, the last month saw new smartcard ticketing initiatives launched in England, Scotland and Wales. And Stagecoach has become the first major UK bus operator to complete the installation of government-standard smartcard ticket machines on its entire UK bus fleet outside London. All 7,000 vehicles in Stagecoach’s regional bus operations are now ready to move forward w

We’ve had another Underground strike so here is a story from nearly 20 years ago with a moral... In 1984 when I started London Pride Sightseeing we used to employ a crew of two - a driver and a guide. London Transport’s Sightseeing Tour had been completely unguided but you did get a helpful map. Cityrama ran in opposition with multilingual commentaries fed into headphones. When the competition heated up LT also offered a guide on some, and then eventually all departures. Our guides

The Travel 2020 conference and exhibition which took place at London’s Brit Oval in September gave delegates a glimpse of how technology associated with travel information and smartcard payment systems will develop in the next decade. After a stimulating two days of presentations and discussions, the key question is how are the operators in the UK going to embrace the new culture of ‘personal real time navigation systems’ - incorporating information, planning, booking, smart pa

Perth-based Stagecoach is to make a remarkable return to bus operation in London with the surprise £52m cash purchase of East London Bus Group. The price that the group is paying for the business is in direct contrast to the £263.6m that it received for ELBG from Australian investment bank Macquarie in the summer of 2006. ELBG has suffered financially in recent years. For the year ended 2 April 2010, the acquired business generated unaudited consolidated revenue of £253.5m an

London mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled a life-size mock-up of the New Bus For London, providing a first glimpse of what the completed vehicle will look like when it enters passenger service in 2012. Johnson was joined in unveiling the mock-up by London transport commissioner Peter Hendy and Owen Paterson, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland at the London Transport Museum’s depot at Acton. The mock-up, which internally takes its inspiration from the Routemaster bus, features two

EU funding has enabled Transport for London to make provision for three more hydrogen buses that will enable an entire bus route in London to use this greener, cleaner technology, helping to improve air quality in the capital. TfL has secured €5.67m of funding as part of the EU's Cleaner Hydrogen in Cities project to expand its current hydrogen bus project. The funding allows for three additional zero-emission hydrogen hybrid fuel cell buses and the opportunity to extend the whole demonstr

Crossrail has revealed striking new designs for Tottenham Court Road's Crossrail station, one of the biggest stations on the Crossrail route. The updated designs not only provide a first glimpse of the new station but also an indication of the scale of the station's eventual size. The new Crossrail station will be integrated with the Tube station to form a combined station that will stretch from Soho to Centre Point. Designed by architects Hawkins Brown, the new station will transform the dail

Barclays Cycle Hire operator Serco today began work on a 124-space 'super' cycle hire docking station close to the main entrance of Waterloo station. The new station will be the biggest yet for the London cycle hire scheme, which now has more than 100,000 members, and aims to cut problems with cycle availability at peak periods around the station. The docking station will be installed next to the existing cycle parking facilities on Station Approach between the Victory Arch and central concou

Stagecoach has confirmed industry rumours with the news that Stagecoach Manchester managing director Mark Threapleton has been named as the new head of the group's recently acquired London bus operations. Earlier this month Stagecoach acquired the bus operations of the East London Bus Group from administrators in a £53m deal. With Threapleton's move south, Chris Bowles, currently the managing director of Carlisle-based Stagecoach North West, has now been appointed as managing director of

Go Ahead this morning announced the retirement of chief executive Keith Ludeman next year. He will be succeeded by David Brown, the current managing director of surface transport at Transport for London. He will join Go Ahead on April 1, 2011 as deputy chief executive and will assume the office of chief executive following the retirement of Ludeman on July 4. "I will have served the transport industry for 40 years when I retire next year,” said Ludeman in a statement released this

London mayor Boris Johnson has welcomed vital investment to improve London's transport network and safeguard the capital's future announced in the government's Comprehensive Spending Review. Speaking at a City Hall press conference yesterday afternoon, Johnson said Transport for London's funding settlement had secured the future of a number of transport projects in the capital. The projects that will now go forward are the continued upgrade of the London Underground network and Crossrail. Mean

Reports this morning suggest that transport investment in London will escape major cuts in the government's Comprehensive Spending Review. BBC London has revealed that Transport for London has been told to reduce its budget by at least 6% every year for the next four years - reducing it by £2bn in total. However, funding for local transport schemes and road safety projects will face cuts, but bus and Tube services in the capital will largely be protected. The Crossrail and Thameslink

The Department for Transport has announced the winners for the second round of the Green Bus Fund. The scheme aims to encourage and help bus operators and local authorities to buy new hybrid and electric buses and the new round of funding will allow the purchase around 170 vehicles which will enter service by March 2012. The funding will help towards the additional up front cost of buying low carbon buses and provides the capital investment required to bring down costs for operators. Local

Perth-based Stagecoach is to make a remarkable return to bus operation in London with the surprise £52m cash purchase of East London Bus Group. The price that the group is paying for the business is in direct contrast to the £263.6m that it received for ELBG from Australian investment bank Macquarie in the summer of 2006. When the bank acquired the Stagecoach London business many in the industry were surprised by how much it had paid to acquire the firm. The bank's cash offer was 1

London's Barclays Cycle Hire scheme passed another milestone last week when the millionth journey was recorded, 10 weeks after the launch of the scheme. So far 90,000 have signed up for membership of the scheme with 20,000 journeys being made every weekday. Commenting on the landmark, London mayor Boris Johnson, said: "A million thank yous go to Londoners for the warmth in which they have embraced our beautiful blue bikes. "The zest in which people have taken to two wheels and joine

I  know it is thoroughly juvenile and unfair but the mental image of the TUC Conference in Manchester as Jurassic Park is completely irresistible. It is not that the beasts are dumb or benign, I am quite sure they are not. Bob Crow is an uncompromising Tyrannosaurus Rex - you eat what you kill, as the bankers say - but it is a different world, surrounded by verdant hills and accessible only by air. It is not the only place accessible only by air; there’s Sarah Palin’s politics

The whole country is bracing itself for the impact of savage cuts in public spending, but there can be few more anxious than transport professionals in the North of England. The North is expected to suffer more than most regions of the UK, and transport is one of the sectors that is likely to face the most dramatic cuts. Once the implications of this month’s Comprehensive Spending Review become clear, transport providers, local authorities and PTEs in the North of England will have to ma

FirstGroup has announced that chief executive Sir Moir Lockhead is to stand down from his role early next year after 21 years at the head of the Aberdeen-based transport group. He will be succeeded by former London Underground boss Tim O’Toole, who was named as chief operating officer of the group earlier this year. “I firmly believe that timing is everything and with FirstGroup in a strong position to continue its successful development the time is right for me to hand over to an

Rail infrastructure operator Network Rail has announced that David Higgins, the current chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, has been named as its new chief executive. Higgins will assume his new role in February following the decision by Iain Coucher to step down from Network Rail at the end of October. Before joining the ODA in 2006, Higgins was the chief executive of Lend Lease, an international property and construction company from 1995 to 2002 before joining English Partner

How do you feel about spending £7.8m of taxpayers’ money? That was just one of the spiky questions that Wrightbus group managing director Mark Nodder faced when the media were invited to his company’s factory in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, in mid-September. They were there to witness the progress made on the ‘New Bus for London’, aka ‘Son of Routemaster’, and the question illustrates that this is no ordinary contract for new buses. The New Bus for Lond

After 21 years at the helm of FirstGroup and its predecessor companies, Sir Moir Lockhead has announced that he will retire. He will be succeeded at the end of next month by former Tube boss Tim O'Toole, who joined the board of the Aberdeen-based group as a non executive director in May 2009, before his appointment as deputy chief executive in June 2010. FirstGroup chairman Martin Gilbert said that Lockhead had made an outstanding contribution to FirstGroup and to the transport industry as a wh

New Transit was given a sneak preview of the prototype New Bus for London in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, this week. The mock-up of Transport for London's New Bus for London, nicknamed the Borismaster after mayor Boris Johnson, is being constructed by bus manufacturer Wrightbus in a top secret area of its Ballymena factory. It remains true to the design that was unveiled by Transport for London in May, and uses marine-style composite material to achieve a lightweight, curved rear end, complete

New Transit’s scene-setting preview for the Travel 2020 exhibition and conference At present, the way public transport is sold and services publicised remains more akin to a nineteenth century experience than the twenty-first across most of the country. The scene at large railway stations during peak times as passengers queue in slow moving lines to pick up paper tickets from booking office clerks hardly reflects the fast-moving, customer service-led private sector enterprises which passe

London’s much anticipated Barclays Cycle Hire scheme was launched amidst much fanfare by mayor Boris Johnson at the end of July, despite the news that access to the scheme was to be limited to members for the time being. Johnson launched the scheme at an event held on July 30 by the London Eye with Marcus Agius, the chairman of Barclays and Peter Hendy, London’s transport commissioner. “Londoners have awoken to a new dawn for the bicycle in the capital,” said Johnson.

The Treasury’s May announcement of Department for Transport cuts of £683m gives some clues. Popular concessionary bus fares will stay but eligibility may be tightened and charges for card issue introduced. 61% of UK local bus service support goes to Transport for London who may raise fares rather than cut the network as bus use growth continues. Outside London, local authorities will cut bus service support, perhaps impacting rural services while some Park and Ride services could b

In little under a month since the scheme began, Transport for London has revealed that 60,000 have signed up to the capital's cycle hire scheme and more than 250,000 journeys have been made using Barclays Cycle Hire since its launch on July 30. On average scheme users are making around 15,000 journeys a day with August 19 the busiest day so far, with more than 16,700 journeys undertaken by the fleet of 5,000 cycle hire bikes. London mayor Boris Johnson welcomed the news. He said: "In the

Members of the TSSA union have voted three to one in a ballot for strike action in a dispute over proposals by London Underground to reduce ticket office hours at a number of Tube stations in the capital. Members of the RMT are also considering strike action over the issue. As the leadership of the TSSA and RMT met today to consider strike dates on the Tube network, LU today urged them to call off the threatened action and recognise that as a result of the widespread use of the Oyster smart t

A significant increase in demand for rail travel during the first six months of 2010 has seen a return to growth in passenger numbers on the railways not witnessed since before the recession. Analysis published by the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) shows that October 2009 marked a turning point when demand on the railways began to recover and that since the start of 2010 overall demand for rail travel has begun to grow significantly. The research reveals: During the fi

In less than two years’ time, 14,700 of the world’s best athletes will compete for sport’s highest accolades at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Everybody knows the famous faces - such as Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Sir Chris Hoy - who will compete in the new stadia. But few understand the sheer size, scale and complexity of the Games. Those athletes will need transporting to and from over 90 official venues, spread all over London and beyond. Around 20,000

Mayor of London Boris Johnson this week joined Tube passengers in welcoming the Tube’s first new air conditioned train. The train, which will start serving the Metropolitan line, is the first of a 191 fleet of brand new walk-through trains that will serve 40% of the Tube network. The introduction of the first air conditioned train on the Tube network, which is nearly a 150 years old, highlights why there needs to be continued investment in the Tube. The trains are part the upgrade of the

It was in early 2004 when the Department for Transport instigated a review of Britain’s railways that Transport for London first proposed taking control of the capital’s suburban rail network. While many of these aspirations appear have fallen by the wayside, the review did result in part of the then Silverlink rail franchise transferring to TfL control, leading to the birth of the London Overground network in 2007.  The previous Silverlink Metro network had gained something o

Transport for London has opened what it claims is Britain’s largest and greenest bus garage in East London. The new West Ham garage boasts a range of eco-friendly features, including a wind turbine and biomass heating system, and will house 320 buses. The garage is predicted to cut CO2 emissions by 27% when compared to a building built with traditional materials. Officially opening the new facility, Kulveer Ranger, the mayor of London’s transport adviser, said: “It is so rewa

In 2006, a year after London was announced as the host city for the 2012 Olympics, Hugh Sumner was formally installed as the ODA’s £288,000 a year transport director. It is the culmination of a career which has been spent managing and planning the capital’s public transport systems and began straight after attaining an MBA from Cranfield. At that time London Transport used to recruit several MBA graduates each year. They told Sumner: “We’ll allow you to do insane th

The UK’s first urban cable car system could be operating in time for the London Olympics. Transport for London has published plans for a cable car link over the river Thames between the Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks. It would link two of the major Games venues, the O2 and the Excel. The cable car could provide a crossing every 30 seconds carrying up to 2,500 passengers per hour in each direction, equivalent to the capacity of 50 buses per hour, and is expected to cost £25

According to the Olympic Delivery Authority, the 2012 Games in London represent the biggest logistical challenge that the country has faced in peace time. The scale of the operation is vast. Throughout the 16 days of competition, the capital’s transport system will have to cater for an average of 500,000 spectators a day, plus 140,000 games workers and volunteers and 55,000 members of the Olympic family, including athletes, officials and media. The Olympic Park is the centre of the action

Transport for London’s cycle hire scheme launched with the news that over 10,000 had signed up as ‘pioneers’, despite the service being limited to members for the first few weeks. London mayor Boris Johnson said that enthusiasm for the scheme, which is sponsored by banking giant Barclays and operated by outsourcing specialist Serco, was ‘infectious’. David Brown, TfL’s managing director of surface transport added that the scheme would revolutionise travel aro

Transport for London has published details of an £820m package of rail improvements for Network Rail’s next five-year spending period (2014-2019). The biggest part of the package is a £540m programme to increase capacity on West Anglia services. TfL says the project has a benefit/cost ratio of 2:1. A £170m proposal to improve London Overground services includes electrifying the Gospel Oak to Barking railway and has a benefit/cost ratio of 2.5:1. The other projects are: w

Transport for London has announced new contracts for 10 bus routes in the capital. All of the awards are on the basis of conventional diesel-engined vehicles rather than hybrids. The announcement sees the transfer of a substantial amount of work from Go Ahead-owned London Central to Abellio, the international arm of Dutch railway operator NS. Route 28/N28 (Wandsworth to Kensal Rise). Re-awarded to First London on the basis of a peak vehicle requirement of 23 existing double deck ve

Fun and games on London Overground were recently reported by the Going Underground blog when passengers on one particular service were treated to every single prerecorded public address announcement.   Captured on the YouTube website, the dulcet tones of Emma Hignett, over a period of several minutes, announce gems that include: “The emergency evacuation stairs of this train have been deployed... please calmly evacuate the train”; “If there is a doctor or nurse onbo

Transport for London has announced the appointment of Andie Harpur as the new chief executive of London Underground infrastructure firm Tube Lines. He succeeds Andrew Cleaves who has left the firm following it’s acquisition by TfL last month. Harpur comes to Tube Lines from global consultancy AECOM. He has a wealth of experience in the transport sector, including running the predecessor infraco for the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines between 1999 and 2002. More recently he was a

June saw a key milestone in the implementation of the London cycle hire scheme with the installation of the first docking station. The location on Southwark Street is the first of around 400 stations that will be in place across the centre of the capital once scheme is complete. The move follows the announcement by Transport for London that banking giant Barclays has been named as the sponsor of the scheme in a £25m deal, gaining right to the cycle hire and cycle superhighway schemes. Co

Before joining City Hall, Ranger spent 10 years in management consultancy with The Nichols Group. His clients included the Department for Transport, Network Rail and London Underground. During this period his focus was on delivering major transport projects in London, including Oystercard and the King’s Cross redevelopment. He is a former vice-chairman of the Conservative Party for cities and currently sits on the TfL board. Holding a degree in Architecture from UCL, Ranger has always bel

There are few people in public transport with a CV as varied as Alex Warner. He has worked for London Underground, British Airways, the Strategic Rail Authority, four train operating companies and FirstGroup’s UK bus division. Adding to this modal mix, in 2009 he was appointed managing director of FirstGroup’s new Greyhound UK coach operation. After graduating from UCL with a degree in English, Warner tried to get on the graduate training schemes for British Rail and London Undergro

Jones is currently joint chief executive officer at transport consultancy Steer Davies Gleave. Prior to joining the board, he led the company’s transaction support division and held senior management roles across the company’s UK and European operations. As a consultant Jones has directed a range of high profile commissions, typically leading teams to provide procurement and bid support advice to heavy rail franchise, rolling stock supply and metro operator competitions. He commen

Babes has an engineering background. After completing a Masters course at Durham University, he spent two years working for the Defence Procurement Agency, project managing the introduction of new equipment for UK’s Armed Forces. After a spell at London Underground he relocated to China in 2004, where he opened Colin Buchanan’s Shanghai office, rapidly and successfully growing the business. A key part of the work was input into station design for both new metro and high speed rail s

Driverless transport systems are an inevitable and growing part of our future. 143 fully automated transportation systems are in operation around the world today carrying an average 5,817,000 passengers every day without a driver. US DoT statistics show that automated transit is significantly safer than non-automated equivalents. There has been no fatality on an automated system in the last 10 years. Given the immense changes to other parts of our lives provided by information technology, it

Only when it is safe and practical to do so. Most travellers simply want to get from A to B safely, with the minimum of fuss and expense, in the shortest time possible. Even though providing a driver, guard or other member of staff on a train is a means to an end rather than an end in itself, passengers’ perception and sensitivities are important and there will be work to do to assure passengers that driverless systems can be safely used. Automatically-driven trains have been around f

Full metro automation is not new. There are 57 such lines in 32 cities and 13 airports, some in operation for three decades now. Driverless metros have unbeatable safety records and can halve operation costs compared to conventional driving. Turning legacy systems into driverless represents a much greater engineering and organisational challenge. Paris and Nürnberg show it is possible. Other cities will follow. And the Tube? In any case, it could only be gradual. An investment strategy to

Under normal circumstances I would be tempted to dismiss the idea of driverless trains on the Tube as some kind of a joke, cooked up by anti-union fantasists, but in the current climate of cuts and attacks on public services we are taking it very seriously. People only have to look at the footage of the carnage down the Tube after the 7/7 bombings, and the brave and critical role played by train operators and platform staff in dealing with that emergency situation, to see why these crew are so

Yes. Driverless train systems are faster, safer and more efficient than the driver-operated alternative. In London, adopting a driverless Tube would have the added benefit of producing significant savings in wages. At present the RMT union is able to hold the travelling public to ransom, striking for the most trivial reason, causing misery for millions of commuters. Those who oppose a driverless Underground, point to the safety risks in introducing such an innovation. However, over the last year

Months of industry speculation has been confirmed with the news that Australian investment bank Macquarie has put its London bus business up for sale. A spokesman for the East London Bus Group confirmed to TransportXtra this morning (Wednesday) that the company's board had met and made the decision to investigate options for selling the business. He added that it was the start of the process and that it would be two to three months before any further developments. ELBG comprises the former S

Transport for London has announced the appointment of Andie Harper as the new chief executive of infrastructure company Tube Lines. Although he will officially take up the post following TfL's acquisition of Tube Lines, Andie Harper - who led the smooth and efficient transfer of Metronet from administration to TfL - will be appointed CEO (designate) immediately and will begin working alongside current Tube Lines CEO Andrew Cleaves to ensure a smooth transition. Cleaves will leave Tube Lines fo

In Edinburgh, we now have a sparkling new tram sitting in the middle of Princes Street. It looks very pretty but it is not going anywhere as this shambolic project limps on through delays and cost overruns. At heart it is a good scheme, at least the airport to Leith section is, but the ingredients for the shambles were all there at the beginning. A wildly exaggerated “vision”, a parliament in denial, approving the scheme but washing its hands of cost overruns and, most dangerous of a

Dear Boris, We all accept that prior to the election political correctness had to rule and that election commitments had to be kept, however stupid they may be.  But now reality has dawned, and fiscal prudence is the name of the game. You should: Scrap the expensive ‘Borismaster’ before even more money is wasted; Leave the remaining bendy buses where they are, possibly moving some onto the central-London Red Arrow routes and swapping the buses on them elsewhere;

Neither. The RM became an icon, but not during its glacial 11-year development. It remains a great design, but only the self-contained DBOM approach of London Transport could tolerate such a laboured delivery of fewer than 3,000 buses in total. Its further significance was the importance of the program across the post-war decade. London needed advanced, effective buses; these days are returning. Unavailability of cars, for the bulk of the population, in 1950 will be replaced by unacceptability

Neither. We are concerned that it’ll cost far too much, both in terms of initial costs and operating costs. The open platform concerns us: it belongs to a bygone era. It led to more personal injuries for passengers, and that’s where nostalgia runs out in our view. Of course London TravelWatch did contribute to the development of the bus. Our Bus Design Panel submitted a series of comments about staircase design, handrails and better identification of priority seating which we hope

It would be unfair to describe the “Borismaster” as an Eyesore so it has to be an Icon - better still, a Monument. A monument to irrational politicians. Barely 10 years ago, this mayor’s predecessor finally accepted that the Routemaster should go, despite having promised to keep those that remained and to build a new open platform bus. Boris Johnson went one better and, with absolutely no knowledge of the subject, made the same promise to build a new open platform bus and to b

The old Routemaster’s long service life turned it into a legend. But was it a good piece of design? In its day probably yes, but not in every way. So what do I like about this new bus? The heavily rounded rear dome (seen on many buses before the Routemaster, too) is a beautifully satisfying shape, enhanced here by the natural line of the rear stair window shape. The potency and power of the natural line is fundamental to good design, although many modern buses prefer styling for styling

Purpose-built buses for London have a history of success and cost-effectiveness. The new one certainly is impressive and has all the hallmarks of Wrightbus' adventurous styling together with clever features to maximise the space, the light and passenger amenity. We will never get the passenger to weight ratio that came with the original Routemaster neither will we provide all those lower deck seats now we have to have a wheelchair space, and more than one door. Nevertheless we have got a great

The TV cameras have fled College Green. A brooding Gordon Brown has retreated to Fife, possibly for a new life as a primary school teacher. Meanwhile, that nice young man, David Cameron, married Nick Clegg in a sun-dappled Westminster garden. All cynicism is banished and men of good faith rule the land. What does all this mean for transport? The election provided few meaningful clues. The ‘debate’ about spending was essentially about whether to cut the enormous budget deficit by a

The final design of the New Bus for London was last month unveiled by London mayor Boris Johnson and transport commissioner Peter Hendy. The bus will use lightweight materials and it will be 15% more fuel efficient than existing hybrid buses, and 40% more efficient than conventional diesel double decks. It will feature three doors, with the rear door an open platform that can be closed off-peak, and two staircases to speed loading and unloading. Manufacturer Wrightbus is currently working on a

Punctuality and improved trains must be core to plans for the East Anglia franchise if passenger satisfaction is to improve, says watchdog Passenger Focus. Passengers using current East Anglia services are among the least satisfied in Great Britain, according to Passenger Focus’s National Passenger Survey. Passenger Focus has asked more than 3000 passengers currently using National Express East Anglia rail services their priorities for improvement. The watchdog has used that feedback to m

Ten thousand free tickets will be given out to passengers to travel on London Overground’s new East London Railway on its first day of operating a full public service this Sunday. The offer will mark the first time that passengers on London Overground’s new trains will be able to travel the complete length of the new £1bn route from Dalston Junction in the north all the way to West Croydon, Crystal Palace and New Cross in south London. London mayor Boris Johnson, said: "

The final design of the New Bus for London was today (Monday) unveiled by London mayor Boris Johnson and transport commissioner Peter Hendy. The bus will use the latest green technology. It will be 15% more fuel efficient than existing hybrid buses, and 40% more efficient than conventional diesel double decks and much quieter on the streets. The pioneering design makes use of lightweight materials, with glass highlighting key features and producing a light and airy feel inside the bus. An

The era of easy public money is over, Philip Hammond, the newly-appointed secretary of state for transport, warned today (Thursday). Hammond held a press briefing at Great Minster House this afternoon after attending the first cabinet meeting of the new Liberal Democrat-Conservative government. Hammond was handed the transport brief after Lib Dem MP David Laws was named as chief secretary to the Treasury, the role which he used to shadow before the election. This role required Hammond to scru

The final winding up of London Underground’s PPP maintenance agreements signals the end of perhaps the biggest and disappointingly underreported transport fiasco of our time. Its demise on the 7 May was certainly a good day to bury bad news from both Labour and Conservative perspectives. Transport for London (TfL) was established in 2000 but control over the London Underground was not transferred to it until 2003. In the interim £455m (according to the NAO) was spent on setting up

London mayor Boris Johnson and a number of London business leaders have today called for any incoming government administration to protect funding for improvements to the capital's transport networks. The group, whose letter was published in the Guardian this morning, includes City of London policy chairman Stuart Fraser, Jo Valentine, chief executive of London First, and Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It sends a united message that building

London mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London announced late on Friday that they have concluded an agreement with Bechtel and Amey to acquire their stakes in London Underground infrastructure company Tubelines for £310m. The agreement means that all London Underground infrastructure operations will return to public sector control and the end of the road for the controversial Public Private Partnership scheme to upgrade the capital's Tube network. TfL said that it was confident that

As we speak David Cameron and Nick Clegg are trying to work out whether they can form a coalition government. Transport is not the key to this agreement, but transport policy will be influenced by its outcome. So what would a Tory-Lib Dem "coalition for change" mean for transport? A glance at the manifestos of the two parties reveals plenty of common ground. Both are committed to high speed rail. Both want longer rail franchises with less micro-management from government. Both want Ne

Media reports suggest that Transport for London is in advanced negotiations to acquire Tube Lines, the London Underground infraco. The move would return the maintenance and upgrade of London's Tube system back into public control and follows the demise of the other infraco, Metronet, in 2008. The Times reported today that Amey and Bechtel, the shareholders of Tube Lines, who rebuffed a previous offer to buy them out last autumn, will be compensated for their stakes, receiving as much as &poun

Since Harry Beck first came up with the design for the London Tube map in 1931 It has become a design icon. Today Transport for London remains justifiably proud of its design heritage. But it’s interesting to note that despite the history, TfL’s designers can still have fun. In the strict 19-page manual relating to use of line diagrams in maps and guides, some interesting station names appear. We’re not quite sure where Filly Square is, but perhaps the designer was a little h

The multi-billion pound Crossrail scheme has been something of a political hot potato during the election campaign with the Lib Dems not even mentioning the scheme in their manifesto and the Tories lambasted for only supporting the plans rather than confirming funding. Luckily though one cross-London rail scheme quietly opened last month in London’s Hyde Park. As part of the Science Museum’s Centenary Icons exhibition, a replica of Stephenson’s Rocket, famous for being the fir

London’s transport system is, depending on your point of view, either world class or an embarrassment. However, in this new age of austerity, future improvements to the capital’s transport, before schemes already under way, will be few and far between. With this in mind, experts in various disciplines at transport consultancy Colin Buchanan have produced a collection of 10 innovative ideas, that are low cost and deliverable in the short term, for London mayor Boris Johnson and his t

As expected London’s £1bn East London Line scheme opened for business in late April, with a limited ‘preview’ service before a full opening of the new route later this month. Despite a political row about opening the route during the general election period and some operational snags, London mayor Boris Johnson and transport commissioner Peter Hendy opened the line on April 27. The preview service will link Dalston Junction with New Cross Gate on weekdays between 7am and

Many within the bus industry have been critical about how heavy the current generation of vehicles are. Although technology in the car industry has made great strides in reducing emissions and improving fuel efficiency, it has been slow to have any sort of impact in the bus world. From an environmental point of view, the current generation of buses are gas guzzlers - a dramatic reversal from the buses of yesteryear which by comparison were remarkably fuel efficient. The fact is buses have bee

Go Ahead subsidiary Brighton & Hove has introduced four former London bendy buses on its Metro 25 route linking Hove with the city’s two university campuses and Brighton city centre. The buses, formerly used on the central London Red Arrow network, have been refurbished for their new role. “It’s an extremely busy corridor and we need extra capacity above our five minute frequency Metro 25 service operated with double deck buses,” explained B&H managing director R

Transport for London has confirmed that it has purchased the Oyster brand from the TranSys ticketing consortium. The move means that TfL now has complete control and ownership of the Oyster brand and will be able to investigate the future potential for Oyster to be extended to new and existing technologies and the commercial opportunities that provides. In August 2008, Transport for London gave notice that it intended to terminate the current Private Finance Initiative contract with the Tra

At present, the situation facing the UK’s public services is akin to a phoney war. Central government spending has continued to rise in an effort to bring the country out of recession, but shortly after the election decisive action will have to be taken to rectify the country’s £170bn budget deficit. To date the government is working on the basis of halving it by 2014. The day when change comes is fast approaching. Over the past year, transport has been one of the beneficiarie

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and Transport for London welcomed the news on Friday that the parliamentary transport select committee’s confirmation that the London Underground Public Private Partnership contracts are “flawed” and have “failed to prove” value for money, as they reaffirmed their view that the PPP is simply not delivering for Londoners and taxpayers. The committee’s report said: “We reiterate once again our judgement that the PPP scheme

First has announced a management reshuffle at its UK bus business. The changes will see First Manchester managing director  Andy Scholey seconded to assist with the group’s response to the current Competition Commission inquiry. He will also be tasked with helping to plan the group’s bus provision for spectators at the 2012 London Olympics. Replacing Scholey in Manchester will be Richard Soper, the current managing director of First’s bus operations in Hampshire and Dors

Costs for London mayor Boris Johnson’s New Bus for London project have risen to over £10m according to figures contained within a recent Transport for London  finance report. The figure means that the first five preproduction buses, which will enter passenger service in the capital by February 2012 just weeks before Johnson faces mayoral elections, will effectively cost £2.2m per bus. However, in a written response to a question on the subject posed by Green Party Londo

Train travel at speeds of 225mph between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds could become the norm if the government’s plans published last week for a high speed rail network can be turned into reality. It won’t happen overnight: ministers envisage construction of the network beginning only after the completion of Crossrail in 2017. The first section of line from London to Birmingham would open in 2026 with extensions to Manchester and Leeds following in subsequent years. The

Reading this month's New Transit magazine brought home the importance of the position of Mayor in countries such as France and the US in delivering local transport investment. Until recently the role of Mayor in England has been mainly a ceremonial one but in this Millennium it has been reinvigorated in a number of locations by changes in Local Government legislation. None more so than in London where we have had two larger than life characters, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, take on the job

Transport secretary Lord Adonis has announced proposals to deliver an initial core high speed rail network linking London to Birmingham, Manchester, the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds, with trains running at up to 250 miles per hour. The development of a 335-mile 'Y'-shaped network would bring the West Midlands within about half an hour of London, and deliver journey times of 75 minutes or less from Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester to the capital. Connections onto existing tracks would be in

Chris Bolt, the Arbiter for the London Underground PPP agreements, has published his final directions and guidance on Tube Lines’ costs for seven and a half years from July 1, 2010. He has allowed £4.46bn, an increase of £65m on his draft directions published in December. The final assessment of costs is £1.29bn less than Tube maintenance company Tube Lines originally said it needed. However, it exceeds the amounts that LU has said that it is able to afford by around &po

The redevelopment of Farringdon Station promises to set a new standard in transport interchanges. When complete, it will connect Thameslink, Crossrail and London Underground, provide much needed extra capacity to this key part of London and also give direct access to Heathrow, Gatwick, City and Luton airports along with St. Pancras International rail station.    Atkins’ involvement in the project is wide-ranging.  They were appointed by N

London transport commissioner Peter Hendy is often portrayed as a humble bus conductor who rose to the top of his profession after years of toil. However, the reality is a little different. Hendy, in actual fact, was born at Wynford Manor in Dorset, home to successive Barons Wynford since 1829 and his grandfather was the seventh baron. It was only after attending the fee-paying Latymer Upper School and Leeds University that he joined London Transport as a graduate management trainee. Now the

It’s a busy time at Surrey bus and coach operator Epsom Coaches, with work on a £2m project to rebuild its head office and depot facilities now almost reaching its conclusion. Commercial director Steve Whiteway admits to taking a hands-on approach to the work. While other senior managers would be happy to let architects and builders get on with such a major project, Whiteway has a more unique approach. “I’ve been planning this work in my mind for years and so I did all t

Firstgroup has beat off competition from over 78 operators to land a major contract from the Olympic Delivery Authority to operate and co-ordinate bus and coach services as part of the 2012 Olympic Games. The ODA expects that for journeys to the Olympic Park, around 10% of spectators will use direct coach services, with a further 11% likely to use park and ride services. FirstGroup will be tasked with managing much of this activity, including the operation of 500 buses and coaches for venue shu

Transport minister Sadiq Khan last month helped move the construction of the new Crossrail station at Canary Wharf into its next phase with the switch on of pumps draining nearly 100 million litres of water from the construction site at West India Quay. The pumps will transfer water from inside the site's specially constructed coffer dam to the North Dock at a maximum rate of 13,500 litres per minute over a six week period. The move will allow construction of the 260-metre-long station box the

Transport for London has launched a new on-line bus tool that aims to provide passengers with better travel information. The tool provides passengers with access to detailed information about local bus services in London.  Passengers can search for information using a postcode, street name, route number or place of interest, and the tool will display the nearest bus stops, details of the bus routes that call at the particular bus stop, and the current bus route timetable. The tool is

Following a competitive tender process, the Olympic Delivery Authority today confirmed that Aberdeen-based First Group has been named as the preferred bidder to provide hundreds of buses and coaches to transport spectators during the London 2012 Games. The ODA expects that for journeys to the Olympic Park, around 10% of spectators will use direct coach services, with a further 11% likely to use park and ride services. The contractor will provide: Around 500 buses and coaches for venue s

London mayor Boris Johnson and senior representatives of the train companies serving Greater London have pledged to continue to work together to improve services for the capital’s rail passengers. At a summit meeting in City Hall on Friday the parties followed up the successful negotiations that saw Oyster ticketing extended to National Rail services by deciding on an agenda for further improvements. It was agreed that: Work will begin this summer to explore opportunities for f

Work at the Canary Wharf Crossrail station took a major step forward today as transport minister Sadiq Khan flicked the switch on pumps draining nearly 100 million litres - the equivalent to 40 Olympic swimming pools - from the worksite over the next six weeks. The pumps will transfer water from inside the site's specially constructed coffer dam to the North Dock at a maximum rate of 13,500 litres per minute. A station 'box' will then be constructed in a dry environment - a similar technique t

Plans by London Underground infrastructure firm Tube Lines for a series of weekend closures to the Northern Line over a 20 month period from March have been described as "intolerable" by London mayor Boris Johnson. The infraco has announced plans for early evening closures on the southern section of the line from July until November next year. The move will see the last trains leave central London at 10pm. Meanwhile, it has also proposed a total of 65 weekend closures over the same pe

Up to four thousand of London’s smaller businesses will be exempt from the two pence business levy to fund Crossrail, while those areas of the capital set to benefit most from the new rail link will pay a greater share, the mayor of London announced today. Whilst over 80% of London’s businesses will pay no supplement at all, rising to almost 90% across the outer boroughs, the capital’s most important new infrastructure project for a generation is essential to deliver a 10% inc

Neal Lawson has been appointed as the managing director of First Capital Connect. He succeeds First rail division head Mary Grant, who has been covering the role since the departure of interim managing director Jim Morgan in November. Lawson joined First Capital Connect last May and has been working as engineering and new trains director, responsible for the delivery of the next generation of rolling stock for the £5.5bn Thameslink scheme. Commenting on the appointment, Grant said: "

The countdown is now on for the demise of the bendy bus in London. So are they being pensioned off to airports in Scandinavia as mayor Boris Johnson promised??Well not quite. The last month or so has seen two of the major groups announce second lives for their recently withdrawn bendys. Arriva is rumoured to be planning to move a batch of bendys to Liverpool. Meanwhile, Go?Ahead, the largest London bendy operator, is treating some of the vehicles deposed from the Red Arrow network to a gentle

Transport for London has announced that it has selected Wrightbus as the preferred manufacturer for the final design and build of its New Bus for London project. The final specification calls for a twin staircase design with three doors, the rear of which will be an open platform but with the capability of being closed at certain times. TfL?suggests that the final design will be 40% more fuel efficient that conventional buses and 15% more efficient than hybrids.

London Underground has called on the RMT leadership to put a stop to the continued threat of strike action, after the union's leadership threatened action from 750 members of maintenance staff over alterations to the rosters of just 30 staff. The union's leadership, which believes LU should use tax and farepayers money to cover maintenance shifts by increasing overtime payments, has also tried to claim that their members' jobs are at risk from external contractors even though this arrangement t

The successful installation of a 350-tonne, 22-metre, concrete and steel section of bridge on the landmark Blackfriars station redevelopment over Christmas has marked a significant milestone in Network Rail’s £5.5bn Thameslink programme. The new section of bridge was specially designed and built on six metre high trestles towers in a site compound to the east of the site, to keep the station open for as long as possible and to minimise impact on passengers. The strengthened bridge

The success of London’s bus network in recent years is well known. Under former mayor Ken Livingstone, between 2000 and 2008 passenger kilometres rose by 74% to reach 7.7bn each year. However, this has come at considerable cost, with operating subsidy for the capital’s bus network rising to £653m in 2007/08, a significant increase on the annual subsidy of £41m in 1999/2000 and well up on the historic lows seen in the mid 1990s. But London’s bus network is about to

Why is he on the list? Brown is responsible for overseeing major rail projects in London and implementing mayor Boris Johnson’s strategy to integrate national rail services with London’s transport network. He is also chairman of the Docklands Light Railway. What kind of year has he had? 2009 has been a good year for Brown. In September he received the ‘outstanding contribution’ prize at the National Rail Awards in London. And in November he finally managed to reach a d

Why is he on the list? Brown heads London Underground, which carries one billion passengers a year. What kind of year has he had? 2009 saw Brown return to London Underground as successor to his former boss, Tim O’Toole. Brown first joined LU in 1989 and spent 14 years with the company before leaving to join BAA as managing director at Heathrow Airport. What’s coming up in 2010? There are major challenges ahead to keep work to upgrade the network on track at a time when budgets a

Why is he on the list? Brown is responsible for London’s 8,000-vehicle bus network, street management, the congestion charge, taxis, river services, dial-a-ride and Victoria Coach Station. What kind of year has he had? Brown has been busy implementing the policies of London mayor Boris Johnson. Bendy buses are being withdrawn and a competition is being held for the contract to build Johnson’s ‘Son of Routemaster’. What’s coming up in 2010? Replacing the bendy

Why is he on the list? If it moves in London, Hendy is responsible for it. He has served as the city’s Transport Commissioner since 2006. He is also chair of the Commission for Integrated Transport. What kind of year has he had? Hendy was recruited from the private sector by former mayor Ken Livingstone. However, new mayor Boris Johnson has been happy to retain Ken’s “poacher turned gamekeeper” as his transport supremo. Hendy’s experience has been invaluable to

Why is he on the list? Johnson is the mayor of London and chairman of Transport for London. What kind of year has he had? 2009 was Johnson’s first full year in charge at City Hall. Transport is the area over which the mayor has the most power and influence. Johnson has slashed budgets at Transport for London and lobbied for the Crossrail project. He has also started to deliver on his promises to remove bendy buses from London and extend Oyster to rail services. What’s coming up i

He has yet to turn 40 years of age but Alex Warner has already experienced life in all corners of the public transport sector There are few people in public transport with a CV as varied as Alex Warner. The 38-year old has worked for London Underground, British Airways, the erstwhile Strategic Rail Authority, four train operating companies and FirstGroup’s UK bus division. To add to this modal mix, in 2009 he was appointed managing director of FirstGroup’s new Greyhound UK coach o

The recession is having a significant impact on bus passenger growth in London, but it’s not as bad as many fear, David Brown, Transport for London’s managing director - surface transport, told the London Assembly transport committee’s bus seminar. “In the first quarter of this year passenger numbers actually rose, but flattened out over the summer. We anticipate that by the end of the year that passenger journeys will be above last year’s [figures] but slightly be

National Express Group has announced the appointment of Dean Finch as chief executive. He will join the troubled group in early Spring 2010. Finch is currently chief executive of Tube Lines, which is responsible for maintaining and upgrading half of the London Underground system. Before joining Tube Lines earlier this year, Finch worked for over 10 years in senior roles within FirstGroup plc. He was managing director of the rail division from 2000 - 2004 and then was appointed to the FirstGro

Local authorities throughout England will be given tough new powers to determine routes, timetables, fares and other aspects of bus services, transport minister Sadiq Khan announced today.  New legislation, which will come into force in January, gives local authorities greater freedom to put in place Quality Contracts Schemes. The new powers will put passengers first by allowing local authorities to decide which bus services are required locally before entering into contracts with opera

The Department for Transport this morning (Thursday) announced funding for 349 new buses as part of the Green Bus Fund. The vehicles will all enter service before March 2012 and industry estimates are that up to 1000 jobs will be safeguarded as a result of this investment. Most of the buses that will be funded by the scheme will feature diesel-electric hybrid propulsion, but the fund will also support the purchase of at least 55 new electric buses. Greater Manchester will be a major benefi

WINNER Stagecoach West Scotland, for Bio-buses ‘Bio-buses’ is a ground-breaking environmental initiative by Stagecoach West Scotland that allows customers to exchange used cooking oil for discounted bus travel. Eight vehicles in Kilmarnock now run on 100% biodiesel manufactured from used cooking oil and other food industry by-products. It is estimated that this will result in an 82% cut in CO2 emissions. Crucially, the bio-diesel is produced from tallow and used cooking oil, both

Rush hour Commuters at London Underground’s West Ham station got a little hot under the collar recently after the sound of a couple passionately making love was suddenly broadcast over the station’s tannoy system. A Transport for London spokesman blamed radio interference as the station’s PA system is wireless. Passengers, however, were not convinced.  "It was definitely a couple doing it there and then," passenger Laura O'Connor told the Evening Standard newspa

I was interested to read Peter Stonham’s recent article in about the insufficient transfer of knowledge between operators throughout the world and UK public transport operators. I couldn’t agree more with a few exceptions: London Underground, London Buses and Newcastle Nexus, who engage in extensive confidential international benchmarking and knowledge transfer groups. I write because here at the RTSC at Imperial College London, for the last 15 years we’ve managed three benchm

When it comes to low carbon buses, London has always been something of a leader in recent years. The capital has been the first to introduce hybrid buses into mainstream service in any sort of quantities and other technologies have made their mark. Now it looks as though these forms of propulsion will form an increasingly important part of London’s transport strategy, with tough targets on air quality contained within mayor Boris Johnson’s recently published draft transport strategy

Casually scanning New Transit during a journey to Lyon, Peter Stonham’s reflections following his attendance at yet another major UITP event graced by few UK delegates set me thinking. How much can UK public transport really learn from our overseas neighbours? Once public transport in the UK could claim to lead the world. Come to that, Transport for London under a management team with a sizeable American contingent, bent on delivering the vision of a US-style maverick mayor has restored Lo

Transport for London today announced new contracts for two bus routes in the capital. Both of the awards are on the basis of conventional diesel-engined vehicles rather than hybrids. The announcement also includes the conversion of route 149 from bendy bus operation to conventional double deck. The change sees an increase in peak vehicle requirement with 30 vehicles required instead of 27. Route 94/N94 (Acton Green to Piccadilly Circus). Re-awarded to Transdev London on the basis

Although vehicle technology in the car industry has made great strides in reducing emissions, it has been slow to have a significant impact on the bus industry. Trials in London show that emissions from hybrid diesel electric buses are 30-40% lower than for standard buses. However, at present fuel savings do not compensate for the price. The £230,000 cost of hybrid buses is £80,000 more than a standard diesel bus, and they are viewed by operators as unaffordable. Apart from the 56 h

Trade union Unite has warned that London is facing a significant wave of strikes that threatens the capital’s public transport system. The union, which is London’s biggest transport union, has confirmed that 2,500 East London bus workers will take two days of strike action starting at 3am tomorrow. Earlier in the week Unite members employed by EDF, working for London Underground, voted overwhelmingly for strike action and later today Unite will announce the result of an industrial

Cancelling the Crossrail project next summer would cost the public purse over £1bn it has been revealed. Liberal Democrat shadow transport minister Norman Baker asked transport minister Sadiq Khan what the cost to the taxpayer would be if the scheme was cancelled in June 2010. Khan responded that the government remained fully committed to delivering the Crossrail project and that good progress has been made since the launch of the main construction works in May this year. However, if th

Media reports this morning suggest that Dean Finch, the former FirstGroup chief operating officer and current head of London Underground infrastructure firm Tube Lines, is a front runner to take on the role of chief executive at National Express Group. It is understood that Finch is on the shortlist of NEG chairman John Devaney to fill the position which has been vacant since Richard Bowker stepped down in June. Commenting on the speculation, Finch said: "I can confirm they have spoken to

London TravelWatch, the watchdog for transport users in and around London, has criticised the decision to cut back on work being undertaken to upgrade the Tube and make it accessible. Transport for London announced in its updated business plan last week that work would in future be targeted at key strategic stations such as Green Park and Bond Street to ensure it would benefit as many passengers as possible. Budgetary pressures are behind the move. Sharon Grant, chair of the watchdog, said:

The Olympic Delivery Authority has granted planning permission for a new hydrogen refuelling facility at a First London bus garage, a move that will pave the way for the introduction of a new fleet of fuel cell buses next year. First, who will operate the five vehicles, were granted the planning permission for the facility to be located at their bus garage on Temple Mills Lane, Leyton. Work is due to begin early in the New Year and should be complete by summer 2010. The five hydrogen hybrid

Business organisation London First has today unveiled research which shows the benefits - to passengers and to the economy - of maintaining investment on the London Underground, and the impacts for commuters of postponing it. The report explains that building Crossrail and completing modernisation of the Tube will bring the vital extra transport capacity needed to meet London's forecast growth. In addition, the Tube's modernisation will generate wider economic benefits for Britain in the order

Transport for London has heralded the weekend move of a Docklands Light Railway station without any disruption to passengers as an extraordinary feat of engineering. South Quay station closed on Friday evening and a state-of-the-art replacement opened this morning 125 metres away, after being tested over the weekend The station, which cost £30m, had to be rebuilt further down the line where the track is straight, so that platforms could be extended to accommodate three-carriage-long DLR

The London Underground worker at the centre of a viral YouTube video has resigned it has been announced. Ian Morbin was filmed earlier this month by businessman Jonathan McDonald at Holborn Station shouting at an elderly man who was boarding a Central Line train. McDonald claimed that the passenger had got his arm stuck in the door of the train. When the victim told Morbin he was sworn at and told to stand behind the platform's yellow line. The video shows him calling the man "a jumped up

According to some commentators, the Conservative Party are a shoe-in for next year’s general election - although they also said that Hilary Clinton was a dead cert for the Democratic Party nomination and we all know what happened there. With this in mind, this month’s Conservative Party conference in Manchester was followed with some interest. How would Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, address the country’s major transport issues? Transport in the UK has been

London mayor Boris Johnson last month unveiled his shopping trolley of schemes to improve transport infrastructure in the capital over the next 20 years and there were more than a few surprises. The draft Mayor’s Transport Strategy reveals the shape of the capital’s transport system and how it will developed. Amongst the proposals are plans for Tube extensions, the long mooted Chelsea-Hackney Line, or Chelney, that is now branded firmly as Crossrail 2, improvements to the bus networ

The board of Transport for London yesterday approved TfL's updated business plan that sets out how investment in front line services and London's critical transport projects will be maintained up to 2018. Although the plan calls for a strict focus on delivering the major upgrades of the capital's public transport infrastructure, it also tasks TfL with a continuous search for efficiencies and an emphasis on value for money. Several key projects are due for completion within the next year, incl

Trade union Unite, which represents engineering, electrical, administrative and management workers employed at London Underground, has announced that it will  give LU notice of an industrial action ballot tomorrow. The action arises from LU’s refusal to move on their pay offer for 2009 and follows Unite’s LUL members’ recent 2 to 1 decision for an industrial action ballot. Unite says that LU's ‘final’ two year offer of 1.5% in the first year and RPI plus 0.5%

Trueform has been awarded a 12 year contract to design, manufacture, install and maintain new Countdown Real Time Information displays across Transport for London’s bus network in the capital. In conjunction with Trueform’s subsidiary company, Ferrograph, Trueform will be manufacturing, installing, and maintaining London’s new generation on-street RTI Countdown signs using in-house resources from the company’s London based manufacturing, installation and maintenance ser

Globalisation is a key feature of our time. Borders are being broken down as commerce takes advantage of the liberalisation of markets, and public transport is not immune. Britain has tended to be relatively relaxed about foreign companies buying up its assets and entering its markets. The French have acquired UK power and water companies, while the Spanish own phone company O2 and BAA, the operator of six UK airports. Just as your energy, water and telephone services may be provided by a foreig

It happened before my eyes one bright autumnal morning in London about 10 years ago. I had read about it, colleagues had told me about it, but I doubted that I would ever see it for my own eyes. As I stepped out of a Barclays Bank on the Edgware Road a number 52 bus was coming up the road, away from Marble Arch. The bank entrance was at the apex between the main road and a little cul de sac. Parked in the cul de sac was an old, battered, white van. As the bus approached, so it moved forward and

Yet again London is facing a  strike on the Underground, with the RMT balloting for industrial action. The union has made a speciality of flying in the face of reality and change. At a time when redundancies and pay freezes are rife, the RMT leadership believes a 1.5% pay rise this year followed by an above inflation rise next year is not good enough for its £40,000 a year drivers. It's hard to fathom why anyone would reject it given the current economic situation. The time has surel

The first new Docklands Light Railway carriage part-funded by the Olympic Delivery Authority has been delivered to Stratford station. The ODA and Transport for London contributed £20m each for 22 new carriages in preparation for increased DLR services during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Prior to the Games, the carriages will be used to help form the three-car trains that DLR will introduce from early 2010. The carriages will also be used to aid capacity on DLR’s mo

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson today announced fare rises for London's bus and Tube networks in the face of huge financial pressures on Transport for London. Announcing his plans, the mayor said he had protected free and concessionary fares for London’s elderly, young people and those on low incomes. 40% of bus passengers will continue to travel free or at a substantial concessionary rate and the Freedom Pass will continue to be valid for travel 24hrs a day on all TfL services. Johnson al

London Underground has condemned the RMT leadership's threat of strike action and, once again, urged them to put a two-year, above inflation pay offer to their members, recommending that Tube staff accept a very fair and final offer. LU has tabled a two-year offer to all unions which would see staff's pay increase by 1.5% this year, and RPI+ 0.5% - or 0.5%, whichever is the greater - next year. Two unions have now put the offer to their members, with TSSA recommending the offer be accepted, a

Transport for London today announced new contracts for six bus routes in the capital. All of the awards are on the basis of conventional diesel-engined vehicles rather than hybrids. Route 125 (Winchmore Hill to Finchley). Re-awarded to Arriva London North on the basis of a peak vehicle requirement of 12 existing double deck vehicles. The new contract will commence in January 2010. Route 143  (Brent Cross to Archway). Re-awarded to Metroline on the basis of a pe

London Underground today welcomed the RMT leadership's decision to abandon the completely unnecessary threat of a one-day strike on the Victoria line over changed working patterns for drivers. LU met with the union on Monday to clarify the working arrangements, which the RMT had claimed would lead to an increase in workload. Following that meeting, the union has accepted that no drivers will work longer hours and has signed up to the same working patterns accepted with ASLEF last week. Under

Thousands of West Londoners will benefit from rail access to the capital's transport system, as mayor Boris Johnson today opened a new London Overground station at Imperial Wharf. The £7.8m Imperial Wharf station in the new Imperial Wharf development provides residents in Hammersmith and Fulham, Chelsea, and West Brompton with high frequency rail connections to the major transport interchanges of Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction. The station, partially funded by Transport for Lond

As a proportion of the passenger transport sector, aviation is relatively small. Of the 7.7 billion journeys made by passenger transport in the UK in 2007/08 only 0.3% were made on domestic flights (22 million journeys). With international flights this figure climbs to 200 million journeys a year. However, this is still tiny when compared to the 1.2 billion journeys made each year on the national rail network, the 1.1 billion on the London Underground and the massive 5.1 billion on buses. And

Crossrail not a key priority for us, warns Vince Cable Crossrail's future was thrown into unprecedented doubt today as its all-party support appeared to unravel. In an exclusive interview with the London Evening Standard, Liberal Democrat economic spokesman Vince Cable became the first political heavyweight to warn that the £16 billion east-west rail scheme for London was unlikely to be a "key priority". Read more

Transport for London has agreed a £1bn loan with the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance part of their contribution to the Crossrail project. The £1bn loan facility which will be drawn out over the next six years, is a contractual agreement between TfL and the EIB - the long-term financing institution of the European Union. TfL and the Greater London Authority are responsible for £7.7bn of Crossrail's £15.9bn funding. Out of the £7.7bn Tfl/GLA funding &p

Transport for London has announced that a consortium made up of Serco and BIXI, the publicly-owned operator of Montreal’s public cycle rental scheme, has been awarded the £140m six-year contract to design, build and operate London’s cycle hire scheme. Of course the London scheme will be one of the factors, aside from the removal of bendy buses from the capital’s streets of course, on which the current tenure of mayor Boris Johnson will be judged. He will no doubt be dema

The government is placing its bets on public transport. In the midst of the worst economic crisis for a generation, ministers appear to have decided that there is a strong case for investing in bus, tram and rail schemes to help stimulate the economy, hasten the recovery and meet environmental obligations. A number of projects of varying sizes have been given the green light at a time when public finances are under increased pressure. So, is this strategy a sure bet or a big gamble? Recent mont

The demise of the bendy bus in the capital continues as today sees bendy buses operating on route 521 between Waterloo Station and London Bridge via the City, for the last time. The vehicles will be replaced by conventional 12-metre long Mercedes-Benz Citaros that feature a large standee zone from next Tuesday. In order to make up the reduced capacity, the frequency of the route has been boosted with a bus running every two or three minutes at peak times, rather than the current four minute

Kulveer Ranger has earned some interesting accolades over the past year. First, London mayor Boris Johnson has described him as his “transport brain”. After that society magazine Tatler featured the 34-year-old among 10 young Tories bound for greatness - tipping him as a future secretary of state for transport. Why not? Ranger has already had a successful career as a transport consultant, working on a range of major projects, and has served as vice chairman of the Conservative Party

The integrated ticketing strategy needs to send some clear messages that simple, unified and integrated ticketing systems delivered by smartcard are what passengers want and what they should get. Following on from Oyster card in London the next logical step would be to do the next tier of major city regions - which are the Met areas covering a population of 11 million people. Once London and the city regions are covered then you can build from there to cover the whole country. There is now a gol

London transport commissioner Peter Hendy has made the decision to only receive half of his annual bonus as a result of the current economic environment. Transport for London’s annual report reveals Hendy’s decision and also divulges that other senior members of staff will also receive a lower bonus than previous years, with chief officers, directors and other senior members of staff affected by the move. Hendy received a salary of £348,000 according to TfL’s report for

There are not many London bus drivers that have a parallel career as a prize-winning novelist, but Marcus Mills is one of them, and with his latest book, the Bristol-born author is on familiar territory. The Maintenance of Headway, transports readers into “the bizarre world of the bus drivers who take us to work, to the supermarket, to the match and home again”. It finds, in Mills’ trademark deadpan style, that buses are run more for the convenience of the operator than for t

Transport for London has welcomed the RMT leadership’s acceptance of London Underground’s assurances on jobs and its efforts to avoid compulsory redundancies, but stressed that nothing has changed following the RMT’s recent 48hrs strike.   LU has said that it had always maintained that it would do all it could to avoid compulsory redundancies following the integration of Metronet and the need to cut around 1,000 posts in order to avoid duplication.   LU also said

Transport for London today announced new contracts for eight bus routes in the capital. All of the awards are on the basis of conventional diesel-engined vehicles rather than hybrids. Route 48 (Walthamstow to London Bridge). Re-awarded to East London on the basis of a peak vehicle requirement of 20 new double deck vehicles. The new contract will commence in February 2010. Route 55/N55 (Leyton Green to Oxford Circus). Re-awarded to East London on the basis of a peak

Transport secretary Lord Adonis has approved plans for the £695m upgrade of London's Victoria tube station. The move follows a three-month public inquiry, which ended in January this year. Used by more than 80 million passengers each year, Victoria Underground station is at the heart of London's transport network. However, severe congestion during the morning rush hour often makes it necessary to stop passengers coming into the station for several minutes, to avoid overcrowding on the T

The recovery of London businesses risks being undermined by GLA plans to move ahead with funding Crossrail using a Business Rate Supplement, according to the British Retail Consortium. Reacting to the GLA’s Initial Prospectus for Crossrail, published today, the British Retail Consortium said that while Crossrail is much needed and long overdue - retailers will contribute far more than they will benefit from the scheme. The plans call for a BRS of 2p to business properties with a rateab

Transport for London has ended weeks of industry speculation with the news that it is to sell East Thames Buses, its arms-length bus operation, to Go Ahead subsidiary London General. The deal will make Go Ahead the capital's largest bus operator, with a market share now just ahead of Arriva at 21%. The group will acquire the business for a total cash consideration of £5m, with the transaction due to be completed by September 5. TfL said the decision to move East Thames to the private s

Passenger Focus has lent its support to the parliamentary transport select committee's findings on fares and franchising. The committee today published a report that branded the current rail franchising process "a mess", and called on the government to act over recent fare increases, service reductions and staff cuts within the industry. Anthony Smith, Passenger Focus chief executive, said: “Passengers tell us in no uncertain terms that they find the fares and ticketing syste

Today sees the final day of bendy bus operation on London's 507 'Red Arrow' route between Victoria and Waterloo. London mayor Boris Johnson, who pledged to banish the vehicles from the capital as part of his election manifesto, has also announced that the bendy bus will be totally withdrawn from London service by the end of 2011. "These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time," said Johnson. "Pedestrians that leapt, cycl

This week has seen the first of the new fleet of trains for use on the Victoria Line enter full passenger service, albeit on a limited basis. The new train is initially operating towards the very end of the operating day, several nights per week, in tandem with the new signalling system. It will gradually operate for more hours of the day over the coming weeks and will roll out into full passenger service in the autumn, when further new trains will start to be delivered. The new trains will f

Transport for London today announced new contracts for two bus routes in the capital. Both of the awards are on the basis of conventional diesel-engined vehicles rather than hybrids. Route 46 (Lancaster Gate Station to Farringdon Street). Re-awarded to Metroline on the basis of a peak vehicle requirement of 17 new single deck vehicles. The new contract will commence in May 2010, although existing vehicles will be used until 2012. Route S3 (Belmont to Worcester Park

London mayor Boris Johnson last month launched the first new trains for use on the London Overground rail network. The new Class 378 trains, which are based on Bombardier’s Electrostar design, feature Tube-style seating allowing greater circulation space, air conditioning and passenger information and CCTV systems. Speaking at the launch, Johnson said: “For far too long passengers have suffered from crumbling unreliable trains that were just not up to muster. Every element on these

The Olympic Delivery?Authority last month reached another major milestone in getting London ready for the 2012 Olympic Games. The 1,600 tonne Town Centre Link Bridge was successfully pushed over 11 live railway lines at Stratford Station. Both before the Games and in legacy, the structure it will provide a vital link from the existing town centre to Westfield’s £1.45bn Stratford City project that will play host to the Olympic Park. “This project took a great deal of planning a

Internal Department for Transport figures obtained by New Transit show that capital spending on transport is expected to be cut by around a third in the eight years to 2018/19 compared to pre-recession figures projected following the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. The total reduction is £29bn, and throws doubt over the DfT’s ability to fund major infrastructure upgrades such as Crossrail and large rail schemes for which funding was committed in Network Rail’s 2009-14 settl

Dubai has a reputation for being a city that likes to do things bigger and better than any other, and recent deliveries to its ambulance fleet appear to bear this out. Dubai’s health authority has just taken delivery of three specially converted Mercedes-Benz Citaro ambulances that can be used to treat up to 20 patients. Perhaps another use for London’s fleet of soon to be redundant Citaro bendybuses?

London mayor Boris Johnson yesterday unveiled a new fleet of 54 Overground trains, that will be rolled out across the network, which will be three-carriages long, will be able to carry almost 500 people - an 8% increase compared to the outgoing trains. Johnson was joined by London's Transport commissioner, Peter Hendy, at Willesden Junction Station to launch the new trains. The fleet of walkthrough trains will be similar to Tube trains, with more flip-down seats, giving more standing room

London mayor Boris Johnson's office and Transport for London has responded to the London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee's report on fares. The Assembly report looks at the potential level of TfL's fares for 2010 and in subsequent years, and asserts that TfL is facing a shortfall of £112m this year due to lower than projected fares revenue. However, the mayor's office has said this is not a new projection and the £112m was taken in to account when TfL's budget for 2009/

London’s transport network could face £1.7billion funding gap by 2018, caused by the effects of the recession, the London Assembly has today warned. The Assembly’s Budget and Performance Committee says likely negative inflation in July 2009 will mean the London mayor Boris Johnson will have to either freeze or reduce fares in 2010 in line with the formula (RPI + 1%) he committed himself to last year.  Reductions in passenger numbers mean TfL is already facing a shor

Trade union Unite has criticised London bus operators claiming that drivers have been unable to switch off the saloon heating of many vehicles during the current heatwave. Temperatures on some vehicles in the capital exceeded 45 degrees earlier this week. Unite regional industrial officer, Peter Kavanagh, said: “Many of our members are being unfairly targeted by angry passengers who can not understand why the heating on the buses can not be switched off during the summer. “The bus

A company maintaining and upgrading three London Underground lines wants to resolve a row over its public-sector funding with a plan to save £2bn in waste through efficiencies, a scaling back of tasks, and better working practices. The Path to Affordability document would cut Tube Lines’ funding needs under the next phase of its contract to £5.13bn. This compared to the £7.2bn that it estimated last year would be needed for work on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadi

The Leader of the RMT Union answers your questions, such as 'Don't you think that £40,000 a year is a lot for driving a Tube train?' People say that you only went on strike because the bosses sacked some of your mates. Is that right? Chris Martindale, Brighton I'm really glad you asked that Chris. That was the Big Lie during the strike... Click here to open the original story in another window

Service announcements on the London Underground are to include the words of great thinkers such as Gandhi, Albert Einstein and Jean-Paul Sartre. Turner Prize-nominated artist Jeremy Deller has compiled a list of quotations to be used by Tube drivers. The phrases will be included in communications with passengers on the network's Piccadilly Line... Click here to open the original story in another window

Last month the Daily Mail revealed that London’s bendy buses are now for sale on the second hand market for just £80,000. Apparently leasing firm Lombard are having a tough time selling the vehicles, hence the discount when compared conventional vehicles of a similar age. However, sales manager Glenn Salmon revealed that there have been enquiries about the buses from Australia and South Africa. It’s interesting that no Scandinavian airports, the spiritual home of the bendy bu

The current scheme is not worth the £16bn price tag. The claimed 2:1 ratio of benefits over costs is a fiction, based on dubious claims about passengers numbers, time savings, congestion relief and job creation. The middle part of the scheme is fine. The trouble is, the Crossrail planners haven’t been very good at finding places to run the trains east of Canary Wharf or west of Heathrow. Boris Johnson is looking for ways to extend the special Crossrail tax beyond London. To make this

London drives the UK economy, the UK’s only world city, supporting jobs and generating tax revenues to fund public services nationally. But London transport networks are creaking. Without investment in Crossrail, London risks slowly grind to a halt.  In the early nineties, politicians believed that the recession might last forever; there would be fewer commuters, so Crossrail was canned. Every toe-trodden, squashed nose 2009 Tube commuter knows that that was a bad call. We needed Cr

There’s no doubt that London needs and deserves a better public transport system with more capacity. However, so do the next tier of city regions. In an environment where public spending will be reduced in the next few years there will be concern in the regions that the balance of spend between London and the rest of the country will be further skewed by the number of major schemes now committed for London.  This is one further reason why transport, as a key economic and environment

I support Crossrail. It will go a long way to solving the biggest problem we face on our railways today - namely the capacity crunch. I am delighted that the construction of Crossrail is at last underway. Although this is a reason to celebrate, it is not surprising that in this era of financial austerity, the future of the project has been called into question. Now that construction has started, it is essential that the different parties who have pledged financial resources to the project r

Yes. Construction of Crossrail is underway and is precisely the project London and the country needs to help tackle the recession and boost confidence for the future. It will increase London’s rail-based transport capacity by 10%, link London's major business districts, relieve congestion on the existing transport network and establish a lasting legacy of jobs and skills, with 14,000 jobs created at the peak of construction. It is estimated that Crossrail will deliver £36bn of econom

A roof-top park and 100,000 square feet of retail space are among the features of the new Crossrail Canary Wharf station, on which work has now begun. London mayor Boris Johnson and transport minister Lord Adonis sunk the 1st steel pile that will form part of the new station on May 15. The station is being built below the water of North Dock. To enable the station box to be constructed, 396 steel piles measuring 18.5 metres high and 1.2 metres wide are being sunk into the door of the North Dock

It was a day that many did not believe they would ever see. On May 15, 2009, construction of London’s £16bn Crossrail project finally began. Prime minister Gordon Brown, transport minister Lord Adonis and London mayor Boris Johnson marked the start of construction of Crossrail at a breakfast briefing with UK business leaders at Canary Wharf, where the first Crossrail station will be constructed. Brown said: “Today we are sending a message that our faith in the future is such

SIX bus manufacturers gathered in London in early June to hear the specification for mayor Boris Johnson’s new “21st Century Routemaster”. They will now decide whether they can build it, and how much it will cost. The six manufacturers on the list include three from the UK: Alexander Dennis, Wrightbus and Optare. They are joined by European automotive giants Scania and Mercedes. The remaining manufacturer is Spain’s Hispano. So who’s going to win the contract to bu

The sale of National?Express Group’s London bus operations to NedRailways, the overseas arm of the Dutch state railway, is the latest move in a musical chairs process by the industry’s major players as they take their positions in the London bus market. While it has been a clearly attractive growth area for some, the attitude of others has been ambiguous to say the least. Currently there are eleven contract holders in the London bus market ranging from Arriva with over 100 routes in

In the past four years, the Department for Transport and Transport for London have awarded 11 rail franchises – Integrated Kent, Great Western, Thameslink/Great Northern, South Western, East Coast (twice), Cross Country, East Midlands, West Midlands, London Overground and South Central. The bidding records on the right are based on franchise competitions that groups were short listed to bid for or are known to have attempted to pre-qualify for. Bids by one-off joint ventures are counted i

The past year’s economic mayhem has been wreaking havoc with the business plans and expectations of many industries. Banks have gone bust, long standing retailers collapsed, and the car industry has seen its volumes decimated and its economic base left untenable. Responding to the consumer recession and falling demand is undoubtedly a massive challenge for businesses, but sometimes it can also be an opportunity for companies to act creatively to build brand loyalty and strengthen their pos

This month’s two-day industrial action on the London Underground by members of the RMT union gave public transport the kind of media exposure it doesn’t want. But it didn’t do much for the staff’s interests either, and may ultimately serve to reshape the way in which disputes are resolved - and the overall power balance between unions and employers. Transport commission for London Peter Hendy couldn’t resist a quip at this month’s Passenger Transport Manageme

London Underground and union leaders will hold talks later in an attempt to avert a 48-hour Tube strike which could leave millions of travellers stranded. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union plan to walk out from 1859 BST on Tuesday in a dispute over pay and proposed job cuts. On Friday LU offered staff a four-year pay deal or a two-year deal which promised an "above inflation pay rise"...

London Underground today met with all trade unions for negotiations towards a revised four-year offer of 1.5% this year and RPI +0.5% in future years, with no reduction in working hours or any other changes in terms and conditions.   The offer also involves a commitment by all parties to set up a Forum to discuss working arrangements required for the 2012 Games.  This is LU’s recommended offer.   However, following representations from the ASLEF, TSSA and Unite unions, L

Transport for London has today announced that six bus manufacturers have qualified to bid for the contract to design and build the new bus for London.   Detailed bus specifications have been sent to these manufacturers - who will be revealed at the end of the year - inviting them to submit proposals for the new bus, including costs and outline designs.   Some of the key features manufacturers are being asked to include in their design are: an open platform: a defining featur

Talks aimed at averting a 48-hour Tube strike in a pay and jobs row have "completely broken down", a union said. Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union members plan to strike from 1859 BST on 9 June, in a move expected to bring most of the Tube to a standstill. The RMT accused Transport for London (TfL) of "rank hypocrisy" in rejecting a 5% pay rise request while paying 123 TfL managers more than £100,000 a year...

Tube Lines and TfL dispute threatens £30bn LU improvement The London mayor, Boris Johnson, could be forced to consider slashing a £30bn London Underground improvement programme after the regulator threatened to intervene in a funding row. The public-private partnership (PPP) project to upgrade the tube is mired in a financial dispute between its last remaining contractor, Tube Lines, and the mayor's Transport for London authority...

Mayor Boris Johnson yesterday refused to meet union bosses in talks aimed at averting the 48-hour Tube strike.  His refusal increased the chances of the walkout going ahead from 7pm on Tuesday June 9. The strike would close the entire network, which is used by 3.5 million passengers a day, and could cost the capital's businesses £100 m in lost production...

London Underground chief operating officer, Howard Collins, has said that the RMT is making "vastly inflated pay demands" and ignoring a duplication of back office roles, following the union's proposed 48-hour strike next month. The RMT has said that a pay increase of anything less than 5% would be simply unacceptable and has called for a reduction in working hours without loss of pay and improved travel facilities. LU said that it offered staff a fair and affordable deal of a 1%

Bag yourself a bendy bargain: Boris Johnson sells off hated buses for £80,000 each (o. n.o). They are 58ft long and notoriously hard to parallel park. And for £80,000 it has more than enough room to fit the extended family in for day trips... Click here to open the original Daily Mail story in another window

Out going Tube Lines executive Terry Morgan questions the future of the company. Senior public officials are risking the improvements in efficiency and performance on some London Underground lines by questioning the future of the private company responsible for them, the company’s out going chief executive says. In a Financial Times interview, Terry Morgan, who is stepping down as chief executive of Tube Lines, said the comments of senior figures at Transport for London, the London m

Crossrail services should be run in the public sector and its rolling stock built in Britain, the RMT rail union has said. As work on the cross-capital rail link began, the RMT said the project should be a public one in every sense, and should be the first step in the creation of a new-generation high-speed network that should also include a new spinal mainline linking London and Scotland. “If Crossrail is finally to be built it is good news for the railways, jobs, the economy and th

Dean Finch has left First after 10 years with the company to become the new chief executive of Tube Lines. Finch was group chief operating officer at Aberdeen-based First and was regarded as the heir apparent to chief executive Sir Moir Lockhead. However, the 42-year-old has now left the group with immediate effect to take charge at Tube Lines. He replaces Terry Morgan who is leaving the infraco to become non-executive chairman of CrossRail. Lockhead paid tribute to Finch’s “un

STATISTICS published by Transport for London show that demand for travel continued to grow in the third quarter of 2008/09, albeit at a slower rate and generally below budgeted levels. The report shows that 830 million journeys were made on the TfL network during the quarter, 2.8% more than in the same quarter last year. The London Underground network carried 265 million passenger journeys, which represented growth of 1.5% over last year, but this fell 2.4 million below the target for the quar

An expansion of the 140mph domestic Channel Tunnel Rail Link services has been put forward by Network Rail as the only practical means of meeting future demand for rail travel from Kent towns to London in a meaningful way. In its Kent Route Utilisation Strategy, the company forecasts that demand for rail travel in the area will increase by 32% between 2007 and 2019. It states that, even after all peak services and the busiest shoulder peak services on the ‘classic network’ have been

London Underground has been named Best Metro in Europe at this year's Metro Awards, beating off stiff competition from Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Copenhagen. LU has carried more than a billion passengers for the third year running - 1,089 million passengers travelled on the Tube in 2008/9, the highest in its 146-year history, and passenger satisfaction ratings also hit a new high with average scores reaching 79 out of 100. "The London Underground is the artery through which the lifebloo

London’s transport commissioner, Peter Hendy, is to address a meeting of young bus and rail professionals in London next month. The meeting is open to members of the Young Bus Managers Network and the IRO Young Professionals - an organisation for young rail managers. It will take place at the Institute of Directors in London on the afternoon of May 11. The theme of the meeting will be integration between transport modes. Aside from his role at Transport for London, Hendy is also chair

Of course the highlight of Easter for many was the much anticipated Doctor Who special on television. The real star of the show was a flying Bristol VR, RUA461W for our spotting chums, posing as a London bus and operating route 200 to Victoria. But more disconcerting for the average Transit reader was that actress Michelle Ryan didn’t check either of her mirrors when pulling away. She may have mastered the art of making a Bristol VR fly, but the jury is out on whether she’d pass her

Crossrail has announced the 17 firms, including Balfour Beatty, Laing O'Rourke, J Murphy & Sons and Morgan Est, who have secured Enabling Works Framework Agreements, following a competitive tender process. The chosen firms will have the opportunity to compete for packages of enabling works for the Crossrail project, including on site facilities, demolition, civil structures and utilities throughout the Crossrail route. Each framework agreement will run for four years. Following an eva

Transport for London today announced new contracts for six bus routes in the capital. All of the awards are on the basis of conventional diesel-engined vehicles rather than hybrids. Route 34 (Barnet to Walthamstow). Re-awarded to Arriva London North on the basis of a peak vehicle requirement of 20 existing double deck vehicles. The new contract will commence in November 2009. Route 76/N76 (Tottenham to Waterloo). Re-awarded to Arriva London North on the basis of a p

It is an important year for GoSkills, the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for passenger transport. This year it will discover whether the government intends to renew its license, which expires in November. The process has now begun and GoSkills must show that it is succeeding in its mission to work with employers UK-wide to improve the skills that make a difference to the performance of the passenger transport sector. GoSkills chairman Nick Mitchell believes that its time for the SSC to raise its p

South West Trains has denied accusations from the RMT that it fought a “dirty campaign” to head off strikes in a dispute over plans to cut 660 jobs. After a ballot which the union said was “narrowly against strike action”, general secretary Bob Crow accused the company of intimidating staff. “SWT fought a dirty campaign, refusing to implement a pay increase, which would have adversely affected redundancy pay, and scaring people into believing their severance money

Bus garage performance league tables for London that have been obtained by Transit reveal that Go Ahead subsidiary London General secured the top three spots, but its Docklands Buses garage at Silvertown was London’s worst performing. The figures, which cover the period between October 11 and January 2, reveal Silvertown scored an Excess Waiting Time variance of -0.43 below the garage’s minimum standard of 1.19 minutes. East London’s Rainham garage was also at the bottom of t

The departure of London underground managing director Tim O’Toole at the end of next month will leave a gap in management that Transport for London says it has yet to resolve. O’Toole, who took up the reins as head of the tube in 2003 under previous London mayor Ken Livingstone, announced his departure last week as a result of a desire to return to the United States. A spokesman for TfL would not reveal exactly when O’Toole tendered his resignation or what his contractua

YES The case for regulating customer service standards in the transport sector was taken on by Sheena Pickersgill of Metro, the West Yorkshire PTE. She said that she felt that customer service should not have to be prescriptive, however, the actual reality of the current bus market, particularly in West Yorkshire, meant that she felt there were grounds for making minimum standards of customer service mandatory. Pickersgill agreed with other speakers that good customer service should be

The cost of converting three London bus routes from bendy bus operation to conventional vehicles will cost up to £3m per year, Transport for London figures reveal. Industry sources have pointed out that the cost is more than the annual budget of many of Britain’s unitary authorities. Contracts for three bendy bus routes were awarded late last year as part of London mayor Boris Johnson’s controversial manifesto commitment to phase out articulated buses from service in London

Transport for London has announced that Tim O'Toole CBE, the managing director of London Underground since 2003, is stepping down to return to the United States. O'Toole has maintained his home in the US throughout his time at Transport for London.  Commenting on his sudden decision to leave, he said: "I am sad to leave London Underground but after six years in London it is time to go home." "LU's customers and employees can look forward to the continuing transformation

Transport for London is moving ahead with its plans to introduce a 21st century successor to the Routemaster bus with the publishing of a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union inviting bus manufacturers to express interest in developing the proposals. The move follows on from London mayor Boris Johnson announcing the winners of the New Bus for London competition at the end of last year (Transit January 9). A joint first prize in the ‘whole bus’ design category was a

Transport for London has published a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) inviting bus manufacturers to express an interest in developing and building a new bus for London, based on the iconic Routemaster. Manufacturers will be expected to take the innovative ideas and designs put forward in the New Bus for London competition and consider these in combination with their own expertise in designing and building buses to come up with a final design. The mayor of London, B

Transport for London commissioner Peter Hendy has given his first interview since Boris Johnson ousted Ken Livingstone as mayor of London in May last year. Some predicted that the new mayor would replace Hendy, who had floated the idea of “refuting Boris’s public transport ideas” in a leaked email during last year’s election campaign. However, Johnson has kept him in the £332,000-a-year post. Hendy was asked by the Evening Standard whether he apologised for the pa

CrossRail’S new chief executive has been confirmed as the man who oversaw the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Rob Holden CBE, who is currently chief executive of London &?Continental Railways, will take up the new role on April 1 when Douglas Oakervee OBE moves across the organisation to the new post of non-executive chairman, from his current role as executive chairman. Holden made his name through the delivery of the CTRL, now renamed High Speed 1, linking the Channe

London’s public transport network was paralysed this week after heavy snow led to the suspension of the capital’s bus system and major disruption to tube and rail networks. Transport for London suspended bus and tram services across the city from late on Sunday night as a result of safety fears about the “treacherous road conditions”, for the first time ever. The decision led to stern criticism from both the media and passengers. A limited service was only reintroduced

Three Christian groups have responded to a recent bus side campaign by the British Humanist Society with their own campaigns, urging the public to believe there really is a God. Online marketing news site Brand Republic reports that the Trinitarian Bible Society, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Christian Party have all funded campaigns on London buses. The Trinitarian’s message "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God” will appear on 50 London buses. The Christian

Transport for London has said that its next task, now that the latest extension to the Docklands Light Railway has opened, is to increase system capacity by 50%. The 2.5 kilometre extension between King George V station north of the Thames and the new Woolwich Arsenal station in south east London, costing £180m, was opened seven weeks ahead of schedule and to budget by London mayor Boris Johnson last week. “Woolwich has long lacked the transport links that encourage the creation of

Pledges for high speed rail investment linked to the government’s announcement of the go-ahead for a third Heathrow runway have opened up the prospect of new airline-led rail services in the UK and beyond. Transport secretary Geoff Hoon confirmed that the Department for Transport is to proceed with a study for the next domestic high speed rail route which will connect London with the West Midlands via a new rail hub at Heathrow Airport. Plans call for the network to eventually reach Scotl

January It was a difficult start to 2008 for Network Rail. The infrastructure controller came under fire after engineering works over Christmas and New Year overran by several days. It coincided with the company’s chairman, Sir Ian McAllister, being awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List. The auction of Laing Rail concludes with Deutsche Bahn agreeing to pay fund manager Henderson a very full price of around £130m, so securing th

Judges of the New Bus for London design competition praised the high standard of entries that they received. A total of 225 entries were submitted in the ‘design’ category, with entries including either a ‘whole bus’ design or focusing on a particular part or element of the bus. The judging panel praised the winning joint entry from luxury car firm Aston Martin and architecture practice Foster + Partners for its styling. “The overall concept was meticulously and

SIR Moir Lockhead began the New Year on a high when he claimed top spot in the Transit ‘Power 50’ list of the most powerful and influential people in UK passenger transport. Having appeared as number one on the first ever Power 50 list last year, the First Group chief executive has retained his position. The Power 50 list includes industry executives, politicians, regulators and public officials. It is enclosed with this issue of Transit. “Last year was a very good year for S

London mayor Boris Johnson today announced the winners of the New Bus for London design competition and revealed that luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin was the co-designer of one of the two £25,000 winning entries. The next stage in the process will be the issue of an OJEU notice inviting manufacturer involvement in January, with production vehicles on the road in 2012 once detailed design and prototyping has been completed. Johnson said that the Routemaster was still the icon by whic

Transport minister Andrew Adonis heralded the one year countdown to the introduction of high speed passenger services by Southeastern last week. Travelling at speeds of 225 kmph, the 29 class 395 trains - dubbed Javelins -  will enter service in December 2009 on High Speed One. They will offer express services between Ashford, the Kent Coast and St Pancras in central London. The service will be suspended for the duration of the  2012 Olympic Games to allow a high speed shuttle servic

Designer Hugh Frost is looking for backers of a radical new bus design that he claims could help tackle urban traffic congestion and pollution. The FreightBus is an innovative new design that combines a bus with a lorry or van with the minimum of disruption to either service. It can be reconfigured in seconds by the conductor or driver to carry freight or passengers and passenger and freight space can be easily adjusted to match demand. Frost submitted the design for London mayor Boris Johnson

Transport minister Geoff Hoon has announced that the government plans to increase the Bus Service Operator’s Grant to reflect the 2p duty increase that chancellor Alistair Darling revealed in his pre-budget report. However, Hoon also revealed that there will be no further increases to BSOG until April 2010 when long mooted reforms to the £450m subsidy to operators will take place. From then BSOG rates will be uprated for those operators who have achieved an improvement in fuel effic

Transport for London has announced that it is reviewing its ownership of in-house bus operator East Thames Buses. TfL’s board is considering whether a sell-off would offer better value for money for passengers and taxpayers. Speculation about TfL’s future ownership of the business first emerged over the summer following the election of Boris Johnson as London mayor. TfL told Transit then that although all of its business was subject to regular review, there were no plans to sell Eas

Transport for London has begun the process of removing the bendy bus from the capital's street with the award of new contracts for three routes using conventional vehicles. The move will see steep increases in the number of vehicles required for each route. Arriva London North has retained operation of route 38 between Victoria Station and Clapton Pond, while Go Ahead subsidiary London General has retained the two Red Arrow routes 507 and 521 which link Waterloo station with Victoria and London

Transport for London is to consider its future ownership of East Thames Buses, its in-house bus operator. The move could see the operator move to private sector ownership, an action that TfL says could offer better value for money for passengers and taxpayers. Speculation about TfL's future ownership of the business first emerged over the summer following the election of Boris Johnson as London mayor. TfL told Transit then that although all of its business was subject to regular review, there w

Crossrail has announced the names of the 12 companies that have been awarded Design Framework Agreements on the project. Under the agreements, which run until completion of the Crossrail scheme, the selected firms - Aedas Group, Atkins, BDP, Capita Symonds, Halcrow Group, Hyder Consulting, Jacobs Engineering, Mott MacDonald, Ove Arup, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Scott Wilson Railways and WSP -will be allowed to bid for design work, including tunnels and shafts, stations, and railway systems.

“It is the duty of the secretary of state to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline”. So reads Clause 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008. Blimey, that’s some duty. “To ensure”: not much wriggle room there. Clause 4, another duty: before June 1 2009, to set carbon budgets for the successive five year periods 2008-2012, 2013-2017 and 2018-2022 at levels consistent with the 2050 obligation. And another: a

Transport for London has restated its commitment to a major expansion of hybrid-powered buses. Following the election of Boris Johnson as major of London earlier this year some had expected plans to introduce hybrid buses to be cut back in a bid to cut costs. However, the mayor’s transport co-ordinating body this week assembled four hybrid buses, built by three different manufacturers, at London’s House Guards Parade for a promotional event. By the end of January next year, the nu

London mayor Boris Johnson’s scrapping of the Cross River Tram and the lack of light rail plans in the £1bn package of funding proposals by transport secretary Geoff Hoon have been criticised by light rail campaign group TramForward. Hoon brought forward £1bn of transport improvements as part of the government’s plan to spend its way out of recession. Funding will be allocated to road schemes, additional trains, airports and ports - but not light rail. The group believe

Transport for London has restated its commitment to a major expansion of hybrid-powered buses. Following the election of Boris Johnson as major of London earlier this year some had expected plans to introduce hybrid buses to be cut back in a bid to cut costs. However, the mayor’s transport co-ordinating body this week assembled four hybrid buses, built by three different manufacturers, at London’s House Guards Parade for a promotional event. By the end of January next year, th

Stagecoach-owned South West Trains has started the first public trials of the Department for Transport’s national rail smartcard. The project is taking place on a small self-contained part of the network between Windsor and Staines, and is limited to season ticket holders. Passengers are being given a discount to encourage them to take part. The system has already been used by staff for several weeks to test the reliability of the cards, validators and back office equipment. The public tr

Transport for London this week announced the agreement of a new contract for the future management and development of the Oyster card system and other ticketing services. Six million Oyster cards are in use across London’s transport network. The deal sees ownership of the Oyster brand pass to TfL ensuring that passengers will continue to have Oyster in their pockets for years to come. TfL claims that the deal will deliver great value for money over the coming years. The new arrangement i

Monoleto Hutchinson only  planned to spend six months in the bus industry to earn some money, but nearly 40 years later, he has stayed for more than that. Having moved to London from Jamaica in the early sixties, Hutchinson started working as a bus conductor, in the capital in 1969. Promoted to bus inspector in 1983, Hutchinson was then sent to Westbourne Park garage where he still works, now as a staff manager - a role he has had under different titles since 1995. “Hutch” as

Over the years since TAS started monitoring the development of rapid transit schemes, there have been several swings of the pendulum. In the very early 1990s, there was an upsurge of interest, with feasibility studies undertaken in as many as 40 towns and cities around the UK. As might have been expected, many of these quickly concluded that there was little prospect of a viable scheme being developed - but others went ahead, and much time, effort and funding were devoted to their development.

National Express’s London bus operations have been revealed to be the capital’s worst performing,  according to Transport for London performance statistics obtained by Transit. During TfL’s period seven between July 19 and October 10, Travel London managed an average Excess Waiting Time of 1.22 minutes against a London bus services average of 1.39 minutes. The operator did manage to beat the minimum performance standard for its contracted routes of 1.25 minutes. Topping

Transport for London today announced the agreement of a new contract for the future management and development of the Oyster card system and other ticketing services that it says will deliver great value for money over the coming years. The deal will also see ownership of the Oyster brand pass to TfL ensuring that Londoners and visitors to the city will continue to be able to use Oyster cards in the years to come. The Oyster ticketing system will also be available if required for the 2012 Gam

Transport for London today announced the agreement of a new contract for the future management and development of the Oyster card system and other ticketing services that it says will deliver great value for money over the coming years. The deal will also see ownership of the Oyster brand pass to TfL ensuring that Londoners and visitors to the city will continue to be able to use Oyster cards in the years to come. The Oyster ticketing system will also be available if required for the 2012 Gam

All of the major UK manufacturers demonstrated their new hybrid vehicle products at this week’s Euro Bus Expo show in Birmingham. While Scandinavian manufacturer Scania displayed its hybrid concept bus that was first unveiled at the UITP World Congress in Helsinki last year, rivals unveiled a number of hybrid models that will enter service in London in the coming months. UK?hybrid pioneer Wrightbus used the show to unveil its new Gemini 2 double deck model with a hybrid version destined

AIM-listed bus manufacturer Optare took the wraps off the Rapta, its new concept integral double deck bus at the Euro Bus Expo show in Birmingham this week. Although only a mock-up of the vehicle was on show, Optare believes that when production of the Rapta begins at its new plant in Blackburn next year it will be considerably lighter than its peers. With an unladen weight of 10,700kg it will be nearly 1,000kg lighter than its closest competitor resulting in a 5%  improvement in fuel cons

A regime of passenger satisfaction targets and penalties for failing to meet them will be introduced at the new South Central franchise which begins in September 2009. The targets will cover customer satisfaction with stations, trains and information as measured by the National Passenger Survey. Each target will apply separately to three service groups - Sussex and the coast, South London, and Gatwick Express (apart from stations). Failure to hit one of the eight targets in any year will tri

I have in front of me a superb piece of public transport information technology. It gives me access to all the bus times in a particular area; it is well indexed and quick to use; it gives adequate details of the routes which buses follow; it includes all operators; I can even call up local rail services. It is fully portable and pocket sized. In short it is extremely easy to use and based on highly intuitive functionality with simple, non-technical search algorithms. It encourages network use a

One of the country’s most senior railwaymen has made a public attack of unprecedented ferocity on the control the government and its regulators exercise over the industry. Speaking at a seminar on priorities for a Conservative government, Laing Rail chairman Adrian Shooter said that micromanagement by the “amateur railwaymen” at the Department for Transport meant it was inevitable that passengers would suffer a poorer service. He described Transport for London’s oversig

London mayor Boris Johnson has said that he is a fan of trams but his mind is not yet made up on the fate of the Cross River Tram, which would connect Brixton and Peckham, with Euston and Camden Town. Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Caroline Pidgeon said that Johnson “made a lot of positive noises” about the tram proposals at a meeting of the Cross River Partnership, earlier this week. She added: “I’m also pleased he’s not averse to the possibility of leverin

A planned strike by bus driving staff in London was cancelled this week after bus operator Metrobus sought a legal injunction to prevent the action. The stoppage was set to involve up to 14,000 members of the Unite union at First London Arriva, Metroline, East London, and East Thames Buses who were campaigning to secure a unitary pay rate for drivers across the capital. However, legal action by Go Ahead-owned Metrobus, plus rumoured similar action from other companies, had led Unite to suspend

Pressure is building on London mayor Boris Johnson to keep bendy buses on the capital’s Red Arrow routes. Johnson was elected mayor of London in May with a pledge to get rid of all bendy buses and replace them with a “21st century Routemaster”. However, pressure is building on the mayor not to apply this policy to the two Red Arrow routes, on which 28 bendy buses serve Waterloo and Victoria railway stations and at peak times. London TravelWatch, the capital’s passenger

Transport for London is considering upgrading its Oyster smartcard with new types of ticketing technology which it believes will be more convenient for passengers. At a meeting of the London Assembly’s Budget and Performance Committee, Will Judge, head of future ticketing at TfL, said he was examining new technologies which could be implemented from 2010 when Transys’s contract to supply Oyster will be terminated. Options being examined include technology which will allow London&rsq

London TravelWatch, the watchdog for transport users in and around London, has appointed Sharon Grant as its new chair. Taking over from interim chair David Leibling, she has been appointed by the London Assembly on a four-year term from this month. Grant has a strong consumer background. She has been chair of the commission for patient and public involvement in health for the last six years, and sits on the food standards agency advisory committee on consumer engagement.  Grant also has p

A study by Transport for London into the number of construction staff required to deliver its rail expansion programme over the next five years has shown that TfL will face a significant challenge in attracting necessary resources. London Rail managing director Ian Brown told the Railway Forum’s annual conference that some of the results were “quite worrying” and showed that building the new infrastructure including CrossRail, Thameslink, the East London Line Extension and upg

Transport for London have now extended the use of Oyster pay as you go on all First Great Western stations in London. Following an announcement in May by London mayor, Boris Johnson, of such a deal between Transport for London and First Great Western, Oyster PAYG  is now accepted on FGW services into Paddington from West Drayton, Hayes & Harlington, Southall, Hanwell, West Ealing, Acton Main Line, South Greenford, Castle Bar Park and Drayton Green. “This is excellent news for F

London travelwatch, the capital’s passenger watchdog, has urged Transport for London to scrap plans to withdraw bendy buses from three of London’s bus routes. It says there is no case for scrapping the vehicles on routes 521 between Waterloo and London Bridge via Holborn, 507 between Waterloo and Victoria and 38 between Victoria and Clapton. Last month Labour members of the London Assembly urged mayor Boris Johnson to ditch his manifesto commitment to withdraw the buses (Transit Sep

It’s a truism that to achieve our aspirations as a leading country in a global economy, efficient public transport is critical. Ultimately our transport networks will succeed or fail to deliver their potential by virtue of their ability to deliver customer convenience, an arbiter of customer choice. Encouraging customers to choose public transport has become more focussed with the environmental challenge to reduce our carbon footprint by 2020. This is made harder against a growing tran

It’s no great surprise that Southeastern’s Mick Crowhurst says he has rail in his blood. After all his late father had two spells working on the railway, his grandfather worked on track maintenance and he had an uncle who was a signalman. But what is more surprising, however, is that at the age of 46, Crowhurst has worked on the railways for 30 years. As he says he has never looked back and quite often people will say he doesn’t look old enough to have been in the same job f

A funding gap of between £1.4bn and £2bn has been estimated for the Tube Lines public private partnership. The PPP Arbiter, Chris Bolt’s assessment of the costs Tube Lines could incur in the second seven and a half years of its agreement,  was published this week. Bolt stipulated that the cost of the Tube Lines programme - which covers the Northern, Jubilee and  Piccadilly lines - should be no more than £5.1bn to £5.5bn. “I have reached th

The future of the Cross River Tram is looking bleak, after the London mayor Boris Johnson signalled that he will not invest any more funding into the scheme However, the London Assembly have put forward a motion asking him to look into all possible options for securing funds. The tram link, first proposed in 2001,  would connect Brixton and Peckham, with Euston and Camden Town. Supporters argue it will drive regeneration in many deprived parts of South London. Johnson was questione

I finished writing this article - extolling the society benefits of free local bus travel for all.  It was to highlight the massive wins for the environment and social cohesion, and balance them against both the loss of commercial freedom currently enjoyed by bus operators, and the loss of freedom to unduly fiddle with the market by local authorities using their new-found freedoms under the Local Transport Bill. I was arguing that free travel would provide very real checks and balances on t

A specially constructed Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 bus took centre-stage at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last Sunday that marked the handover of the Olympic flag to the city of London. Transit understands that the vehicle was constructed in conditions of upmost secrecy  by ADL in Scotland before being converted by a specialist firm in Leeds. During the show the bus ‘unwrapped’ to reveal a model of London landmarks and hydraulic platforms from which singer

Bus drivers at First’s London bus business were poised this week to stage strike action in a dispute over pay after they rejected a last minute 4% deal from management. Members of the Unite union are also threatening that unless an agreement is reached, a 48-hour stoppage will take place next month. The action is part of Unite’s current campaign to harmonise pay and conditions across the capital’s bus operators. The union submitted a London-wide claim to all bus operators

National Express Group’s bid for an extension to its c2c franchise is focussing on increasing all peak services to 12-cars from December 2010. The company initially had its bid turned down by the Department for Transport on the grounds of value for money, but, after two days of frantic negotiations, was given permission to re-submit its application (Transit July 18). NEG’s plans are based on the cascade of 40 class 321 carriages from London Midland, in line with the DfT’

Last week saw around 250 passenger transport professionals gather in the luxurious surroundings of The Dorchester Hotel in London to celebrate the achievements of individual managers at the inaugural Passenger Transport Management Awards. It provided an opportunity to step back and look at the challenges that face the industry, and those who contribute to it, and who better to do that than Peter Hendy? Hendy has devoted his career to passenger transport since joining London Transport as a gra

The launch of a design competition to find a 21st successor to the Routemaster bus  has got under way with the organisers seeing the exercise as the perfect opportunity to find new technologies that will lead to a lighter and more fuel efficient urban bus for London. Speaking at the launch of the competition at the London Transport Museum, mayor Boris Johnson, who pledged to introduce a 21st century Routemaster as part of his successful election campaign earlier this year, called for de

Transys has been told by Transport for London that its £100m-a-year contract to run London’s Oyster card system will be terminated five years early. The contract was due to run until 2015 but TfL is exercising a break option to cancel it in 2010. Six million Oyster cards are in use across London’s transport network. In a statement, mayor Boris Johnson and TfL said they were convinced that any future contracts will deliver enhanced services for less money. “The mayor

Work is now underway on the new £350m Blackfriars station that will form a vital part of the Thameslink expansion project. Once completed, at the end of 2011, the new station will able to deal with three times the number of trains and passengers as it does today - from a maximum of 64 carriages per hour to 172. It will be the first station in London to span the Thames - enabling direct access to the South Bank and attractions including Tate Modern. Other work includes widening the br

Construction of the new Imperial Wharf station has now commenced. Situated on the West London Line, the new station will link the Imperial Wharf development to Clapham Junction in the south, and Willesden Junction in the north, adding important new connections to the capital. The station will benefit local residents and businesses in both Hammersmith & Fulham and the southern end of Kensington & Chelsea. The project is being undertaken by St George Central London, developers of Imperi

A Dutch judge has ruled that details of how to copy Transport for London’s Oyster smart card system can be published by a team of researchers from a university in the Netherlands. The ruling overturns an injunction granted in June after the academics demonstrated how to copy cards and ride for free on the capital’s transport system. The team now plans to publish the details of their research in September. The weaknesses centre on the  Mifare Classic chip within each card

“Half of Britain’s rail services would be brought back within public control under a plan to strip train companies of the right to set fares, timetables and quality standards across London.” Thus spake The Times reporting an interview with Ken Livingstone, London’s mayor. “I am optimistic,” he said “that TfL will end up controlling all the franchises in Greater London. We want to get the same standards we are introducing on London Overground on all servi

Transport for London is drawing up plans to extend its Overground quality standards to Southern’s Metro routes when the new franchise is awarded next year. Attempting to gain new powers to let Southern’s inner London services as a separate Silverlink Metro-style concession is one option open to TfL. However, alternative tactics are also being devised to enable TfL to control frequency, ticketing, fares and customer service standards across the capital’s rail network. Opti

Five hundred public transport users in London this week began a six-month trial of a new mobile phone that incorporates Oyster ticketing technology. Transport for London and TranSys, the consortium that delivers the Oyster smartcard, have joined forces with mobile phone company O2 to trial the mobile handset. The ‘O2 wallet’ phones incorporate Oyster technology, allowing them to be used to pay for travel across London. Since its launch in 2003, more than 10 million cards have b

Ballymena-based bus manufacturer Wrightbus has announced that it is developing a new double decker bus that will replace its current best selling Gemini model. Artists impressions of the new bus show a distinct resemblance to its futuristic StreetCar trambus product. Speaking at a special event to brief key London bus operators on the new product, group managing director Mark Nodder said: “By being the first to make hybrid-electric technology a reality in city bus operations in the UK,

Outdoor media firm CBS Outdoor has signed its first clients for its innovative Cross Track Projection (XTP) system on London Underground. Since this week, moving advertising from Nestlé, Sky, Magners, Paramount, InBev and Dewynters has been projected across tracks in full motion and HD quality at 23 sites at five of the busiest stations in the capital’s centre. The contracts with the six organisations will run for a minimum of 6 weeks from June 30. Piccadilly Circus, Bank, Li

Northern Rail’s head of government and community strategies, Paul Salveson, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list for services to the rail industry. Salveson (pictured) was general manager and founder of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships, where he built a reputation as one of the leading figures in Britain’s community rail movement. He moved to Northern Rail in 2005 where he has been engaging community involvement in the operator’s netw

The government has been forced to pay off £1.7bn of debts racked up by failed Tube PPP firm Metronet. The announcement that the government would foot the bill came after Metronet’s bankers exercised a condition of the PPP contracts which guarantees that London Underground will pay back at least 95% of outstanding debt six months after the start of any PPP administration. In a statement to parliament setting out Transport for London’s funding for the next 10 years, transport

The facts speak for themselves. Small operators score higher than larger ones. The most recent National Passenger Survey shows it. The latest punctuality figures do too. So how concerned should we be when a preliminary assessment of the likely performance of the Leviathan Crossrail provides a punctuality performance measure (or PPM, the percentage of  trains arriving on time) of 71% based on the state of the assets today? The short answer is a question. “Can they be serious?&rdquo

TRAVEL LONDON and Selkent, part of the former Stagecoach London operations now owned by Australian investment bank Macquarie, have been revealed as the capital’s worst performing high frequency bus operators, according to figures obtained by Transit. During Transport for London’s period 10 between October 13 and January 4, Travel London managed an average excess waiting time of 1.47 minutes against a minimum performance standard of 1.27 minutes. Selkent had an EWT figure of 1.36 m

Trade union Unite is demanding a standard wage and a cut in driving hours for bus drivers across all of London’s bus operators. This co-ordinated capital claim is the first direct challenge to all the bus companies since privatisation in the 1980s. Later this month a similar capital-wide claim will be lodged for other bus workers. Unite said that while real progress has been made on buses since the formation of Transport for London, this is not reflected in bus workers’ pay. Pay r

Transport for London has concluded negotiations with Tramtrack Croydon Ltd, the holder of the PFI concession that owns and operates the Croydon Tramlink light rail system, to acquire the business for £98m. The deal will bring to an end the fraught relationship between Transport for London and TCL, and also provide a significant windfall profit for TCL’s shareholders: Amey, Sir Robert McAlpine and investment groups RBS and 3i. London mayor Ken Livingstone welcomed the move, whic

Boris Johnson is understood to be considering who he will appoint as London’s transport supremo if he is elected as mayor of London on May 1. The Tory candidate, who is leading the current mayor, Ken Livingstone, in most polls, is said to be looking for a replacement for Peter Hendy, Transport for London’s commissioner. The media have linked First Group’s Nicola Shaw with the role. Shaw has been managing director of First’s UK bus division since 2005 and is credited

It was perhaps unfortunate that the second reading of the Local Transport Bill in the Commons coincided with the address to members of both houses by the president of France, for it reduced to a small number those MPs in the chamber to participate in what is for us an all-important debate. At 3.26pm the member for Manchester Blackley, Graham Stringer, rose to make his contribution, keenly awaited as a leading member of the parliamentary transport select committee. So we could have expected e

After the relative tranquility in recent months following moves by the government to beef up bus regulatory powers, the second reading of the Local Transport Bill in Westminster late last month reignited the debate once again. Opening proceedings, transport minister Rosie Winterton said that the bill would empower local authorities to improve public transport and promote social inclusion. “The bus has always been the workhorse of the transport system,” she told the Commons. &ldqu

A recent poll by London’s Evening Standard newspaper found that 87% of Londoners want to see the return of the Routemaster. It’s not surprising then that Boris Johnson has pledged to do just that if he is elected mayor of London on May 1. In his transport manifesto, the Tory candidate writes: “I want to see the next generation of Routemaster, with conductors, running on the streets of London by the end of my first term as mayor.” It is a pledge that could return to haunt

The election of Boris Johnson as the new mayor of London looks unlikely to result in changes to senior personnel at Transport for London. TfL commissioner Peter Hendy and London Underground managing director Tim O’Toole are understood to be staying on. The pair are likely to welcome the anticipated appointment of Steven Norris, the former Tory transport minister for London, as TfL chairman. This post has been occupied by Ken Livingstone, the previous mayor, for the past eight years. Nor

Transport for London is entering uncharted territory. For the first time in its eight-year history London’s transport co-ordinating body is having to adapt to a change of mayor. Boris Johnson has plans to make many changes, but it seems that for now he won’t be changing the senior management team put together by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone. Peter Hendy, who took over from Bob Kiley as TfL commissioner in 2006, is staying put and is already working closely with his new boss. Last

Politicians - who needs them? Well unfortunately we do. Oh how we dislike them yet my how we rely on them! Indeed that very reliance is the reason for our distaste. They fund us. They re-structure us. They target and tax us. Just about every major factor affecting the economic and policy environment applicable to transport emanates from politicians. Increasingly they wield significant power at local as well as national level. Devolved government is with us to stay. We resent much of this. We

ANALYSIS of bus punctuality surveys undertaken for the Department for Transport suggests some improvement in the overall level of punctuality since 2005. The statistics were published earlier this month, and are based on observations by  bus compliance officers employed by the Vehicle and Operator Service Agency (VOSA) in each of the traffic areas. A total of  over 25,000 observations were made at 299 sites around Great?Britain outside London. Across the country as a whole, the s

Bus garage performance figures produced by Transport for London and obtained by Transit reveal that Travel London’s Beddington Lane garage, formerly owned by Connex before its withdrawal from  the market four years ago, is the capital’s worst performing bus garage. The figures, which cover the period between February 2 and April 25 reveal that TfL’s minimum standard for the garage is an Excess Waiting Time of 1.10 minutes, with Beddington Lane’s actual EWT figure

London mayor Boris Johnson has announced that he is to end the capital’s controversial ‘oil for expertise’ deal with Venezuela. Former mayor Ken Livingston, signed a deal with the South American nation’s state-owned oil company last year to cut 20% of the fuel bill for London’s bus fleet in return for transport consultancy, including advice on planning, congestion charging and ticketing. The savings were used to offer discount fares to the quarter of a million Lo

Brian Cooke has been sacked from his post as chairman of passenger watchdog London TravelWatch over his support for Boris Johnson in the May 1 London mayoral election. The London Assembly’s transport committee this week found that Cooke had breached the terms of his contract when he issued a “personal statement” to the media in which he attacked then-mayor Ken Livingstone and revealed that he had already voted for Johnson. After summoning Cooke to City Hall to ask him to

Recent issues of Transit have not made cheerful reading for the bus industry. The debacle of the concessionary fares scheme in England, reports of resulting service cuts as hard pressed local authorities struggle to manage their transport budgets. Then there’s the problem of rising fuel costs, continuing wage inflation and falling budgets for supported services. All this saps morale, wastes scarce management time and destabilises services for passengers. Infact, what the industry nee

The long awaited Crossrail scheme took a major step forward this week after private sector beneficiaries agreed to contribute more than £1bn towards the £16bn east-west London rail link. The City of London Corporation, Canary Wharf and BAA are each understood to be willing to donate hundreds of millions of pounds to finally get the scheme off the drawing board. However, the exact nature of their contributions still remains unclear. Recent progress follows pressure from prime mini

GO AHEAD is to expand its presence in the London bus market with the news that it has entered into final negotiations to acquire First’s Orpington bus operations for an undisclosed sum. The deal marks the first time that the Aberdeen-based group has sold part of its UK bus business to a rival operator. Go Ahead’s Metrobus subsidiary expected to conclude the acquisition on December 8. Explaining the justification for the move, First London managing director Adrian Jones said: &l

Amidst the furore over the severance pay given to Metronet executives last week, there is concern that the departure of chief executive Andrew Lezala will make the infraco even more unstable. Metronet went into administration because of cost overruns amounting to approximately £2bn. Chief executive Andrew Lezala, chief financial officer Philip Pacey, commercial officer Ken Owen, management officer David Clarke and communications chief  Paul Emberley were awarded severance pay by th

London Overground Rail Operations, the joint venture between Laing Rail and Hong Kong metro operator MTR that will commence operation of Transport for London’s London Rail Concession later this month, has completed the appointment of its senior management team. All will report to recently appointed managing director, Steve Murphy (pictured). Catherine Noah, who has worked across two previously successful public private partership bids, joins as human resources director. Peter Daw, will

Bus driver Bill Madge has seen many changes in the 17 years since he started the job. One of the most significant is the decline in the numbers of youngsters using the buses. “Ten years ago we were inundated with children and teenagers travelling by bus, especially during the summer holidays, but now you see them less and less,” says Madge, who drives for Stagecoach in South Wales. “Even during term-time there are fewer children travelling to and from school by bus than ther

One of the key issues set out by Network Rail’s Chris Green and Railway Forum chairman elect Richard Brown for the rail industry to address in its longer term planning was making the case for new electrification schemes, and proving that their capacity and environmental benefits would provide value for money. Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, said the government had “absolutely ducked the issues” in this summer’s white paper. However, Transport for London’s

When the government published its rail white paper this summer, it was billed as a 30-year plan. But on closer inspection it was nothing of the sort. A detailed five-year investment programme interspersed with some rather vague musings on the longer term would probably be a more accurate description. In some respects it would be entirely understandable if the rail industry was not overly concerned about the lack of long term detail. After all, the white paper’s £10bn, five-year in

The government has given Transport for London responsibility for letting the concession to operate Crossrail when the project is completed in 2017. In line with its London Overground concession and bus services, TfL will take the revenue risk, letting the Crossrail concession as a gross cost contract. A premium fare will be charged for services to Heathrow, but on the rest of the network fares will be incorporated into TfL's Oyster pay as you go and zonal structures. The formal handover

Transport for London is intending to scrap the current fares on its London Overground routes “as soon as possible” after the new contract starts on November 11. The new fares will be exactly the same as on Underground services, reflecting TfL’s belief that there is a need for a single, consistent system of public transport in the capital. London Rail development director Peter Field told Transit that there was no great difference in price between LU fares and the current rai

The association of Train Operating Companies has announced that London’s train operators are close to agreeing a deal which will commit them to accept pay as you go Oyster smartcard tickets. The deal will involve Transport for London making new concessions to operators including paying for installation of validators and back office equipment at stations. It had previously only agreed to pay for the equipment itself. Every London commuter TOC is now expected to have signed up to the deal

Hitachi Europe this week unveiled its new Ashford Train Depot maintenance facility, where Southeastern’s new fleet of high speed Class 395 Javelin units, built by the Japanese manufacturer, will be maintained. The ceremony, attended by transport secretary Ruth Kelly, also saw the first of the units unveiled, which will be joined by a further three trains in the coming months for an extensive test programme. “I’m truly impressed to see this first train in the fleet that will

The long awaited Crossrail scheme took a major step forward this week after private sector beneficiaries agreed to contribute more than £1bn towards the £16bn east-west London rail link. The City of London Corporation, Canary Wharf and BAA are each understood to be willing to donate hundreds of millions of pounds to finally get the scheme off the drawing board. However, the exact nature of their contributions still remains unclear. Recent progress follows pressure from prime mi

big question marks hang over the structure and ownership of tube infraco Metronet now that it has gone into administration. However, prime minister Gordon Brown has made it clear that the PPP will stay in the private sector. Metronet, the consortium of Balfour Beatty, Atkins, EDF Energy and Thames Water have two PPP contracts, Metronet Rail BCV and Metronet Rail SSL, for maintaining and renewing two thirds of the tube over 30 years. Metronet sought the appointment of a PPP?administrator f

TRANSPORT FOR London’s fifth monitoring report into the impact of the central London congestion charge has revealed that although traffic levels remain lower than when the scheme was first introduced in early 2003, average bus speeds are now dropping. Despite investment by TfL in bus priority, bus speeds have been in decline since 2003 throughout London, with the greatest drop recorded within the congestion charge zone. “In the past year alone there has been a 5% decease in bus

the department for Transport has been urged to ensure that smartcard ticketing is introduced across the entire UK rail network in time for the 2012 Olympic Games. Jeremy Acklam, an expert in new ticketing solutions and business development director for online retailer TheTrainline, warned that if action was not taken soon the government risked missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity. Speaking at last week’s Transit-sponsored Public Transport Mobile Generation conference in Bi

The American boss of London Underground, the publicly-owned operator of the world’s oldest metro, strides purposively into the room and introduces himself with a firm handshake. Dapper in a sharp navy suit, neatly folded breast pocket handkerchief, and an expensive-looking silk tie, Tim O’Toole could easily pass for a commercial attorney, the job he did for most of the 1980s. Only a pair of distinctive London Underground cufflinks gives the game away. O’Toole, 52, was ap

Metronet has given notice to London Underground of its intention to invite PPP arbiter Chris Bolt to conduct an extraordinary review. The Tube infraco claims the review is necessary for it to recover the “significant” additional costs it claims to have incurred. Metronet claims that during the first four years of its PPP contract to renew the LU’s Bakerloo, Central, Victoria, and Waterloo & City lines,  costs have been higher than anticipated. The extraordinary revi

The first of six new Class 395 high speed trains due to come into service with Southeastern in December 2009, has been constructed at Hitachi’s factories in Japan and is currently undergoing testing. Dubbed ‘Javelins’, the high speed trains will operate under Southeastern on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link High Speed 1 line between Ashford and London St Pancras international, where they will be capable of travelling at 186 mph. They will also be used for a high-speed shuttle

A?NEW?REPORT by the Commission for Integrated Transport has called for the creation of strategic transport authorities, with greater powers than Transport for London, in the six metropolitan counties of England. It is likely that at least some of CfIT’s recommendations will be included in the government’s proposed Road Transport Bill, the draft of which will be published in the summer. The report adds that while the conurbations themselves are good at strategic planning, their

THE?GROWING importance of London as a world financial centre and a booming economy has seen London Underground carry more than one billion passengers in a year for the first time new figures from Transport for London reveal. The billionth passenger journey was recorded last week and it exceeds last years figure when the tube carried a total of 971 million passengers. It is likely that the year end passenger figure will be much higher as there still remains two further weeks of the current fin

London Underground infraco firm Metronet has revealed that at a recent consultation into the proposed interiors for the new fleet of trains for the Victoria Line, 93% of the 415 respondents said they were either very satisfied or satisfied with the proposed carriage design, which is significantly higher than the 65% required by Metronet’s PPP contract. Particularly well rated was the overall sense of space in the new trains, the electronic passenger information system, better ventilatio

FIRST’S WEST London bus business has knocked Go Ahead-owned London General from the top of Transport for London’s bus performance league tables to become the capital’s most reliable operator. New performance figures obtained by Transit reveal that in the latest performance period between December 12 last year and March 2, First London West scored an average excess waiting time of 0.94 minutes. This figure is  up from 1.21 minutes in the previous period and 0.57 minutes

London mayor Ken Livingstone and transport commissioner Peter Hendy signed an deal with a Venezuelan oil company last week which will provide cheap fuel for London’s bus fleet, and discounted bus and tram travel for London residents on benefits. The ‘Energy Funding Contribution and Co-operation Agreement’ follows negotiations between Livingstone and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Transport for London will be entitled to a rebate from PDVE of 20% of the annual fuel bill fo

metronet has been called this week to ‘Extraordinary Review’ with the arbiter of the Tube PPP, by London mayor Ken  Livingstone, to resolve cost overruns and inefficiency. The Arbiter, Office of Rail Regulation chairman Chris Bolt, published his first annual review of the PPP?at in November (Transit November 24). The review highlighted a forecast overrun of £750m during the first seven-and-a-half year period. “The PPP contracts lack any real teeth,” L

after accusing train operators of dragging their heels, London mayor Ken Livingstone has welcomed their outline agreement to accept Oyster Pay As You Go smart card ticketing on their services. Last May Livingstone offered operators funding of £20m to help cover the costs of installing the equipment needed to accept PAYG, but some operators are wary of the financial impact of accepting PAYG. However, one by one the majority of London’s operators announced their intention

Transport for London has concluded its three-year trial of a small fleet of fuel cell buses and has confirmed that plans to procure an eventual fleet of 70 vehicles by 2010 are now well advanced. The three trial vehicles began operation in early 2004 on the First London-operated RV1 Riverside route along London’s South Bank. The trial was conducted as part of the Europe-wide CUTE initiative  which has seen a total of 27 of the vehicles operated in nine cities across Europe. Once de

london mayor Ken Livingstone says that train operators have until the end of the  month to accept an offer from Transport for London to help finance the roll-out of its Oyster smart card to the capital’s rail network. Following a landmark deal with the Department for Transport in May last year, the mayor offered a funding package of £20m to the train operators to finance the provision of Oyster equipment to the 310 stations in London zones 1-6. However, Livingstone claims

London mayor Ken Livingstone has come under fire over “eye-watering” bus and tube fare rises in the capital for 2007. He is accused of hitting low income earners the hardest, for increasing Oyster ‘pay as you go’ fares by “stealth”, and discouraging people from using public transport. Cash fares for a single tube journey have risen from £3 to £4 in Zone 1 and on buses from £1.50 to £2. Whilst single journeys on buses and tubes remai

Chiltern Railways has become the first UK train operator to sell the complete range of Transport for London smartcard Oyster products at its main London Marylebone station. Chiltern passengers can now purchase all products including ‘pay as you go’ Oyster for the Tube. The Laing-owned company has also sold its first annual Oyster card on its new Fastis booking office ticket machines, which represent an investment of £800,000. “We have worked very closely with Transp

Former First business development director Rodney Dickinson (pictured) was the recipient of an OBE for services to public transport in the latest New Year’s honours list. Diana Shindler, a legal advisor for the Department for Transport and Robert Watkins, director of transport and environment at East Sussex County Council, also received OBEs. Meanwhile, Clive Bennett, chief executive of the DVLA licensing agency, has been awarded a CBE. Also receiving honours were a number of individ

London mayor Ken Livingstone last week issued a challenge to UK bus manufacturers when he announced that the first to produce a workable and competitive diesel-electric hybrid powered range of vehicles would scoop the lion’s share of future London bus orders. Livingstone made his comments at the City Hall launch of the first hybrid double deck bus in the world. The vehicle, which has been produced by Northern Ireland-based Wrightbus, will enter service with Arriva on route 141 between

National Express Group chief executive Phil White bowed out of the UK?passenger transport business as its highest earner. White, who retired in September after nine years in charge at National Express, took home £1,010,000 for the year to December 31, 2005, up by almost 2% on the previous year. The industry’s next highest earner was Stagecoach chief executive Brian Souter, who received £924,000 in the year to April 30, 2006, up 10% on his previous year’s earnings.

Last month passenger transport professionals gathered at Durham Cathedral to pay their final respects to Chris Moyes, co-founder of bus and rail group Go Ahead. Together with Martin Ballinger, Moyes spent two decades guiding the development of the group into a £1bn business, which now employs 20,000 people in the bus, rail, aviation services and parking businesses. His untimely death at the age of just 57 saddened the whole industry. Go Ahead is now entering a new era. Ballinger retired

When Transport for London announced the shortlisted bidders for its new London Rail concession it was a surprise to find that NedRailways was bidding without its long-term partner, Serco. NedRailways will compete alone against FirstGroup, Govia and a joint venture between Laing and Hong Kong’s MTR for the contract, which will eventually combine Silverlink Metro services with the extended East London Line. The joint venture between the international arm of Dutch national train operator,

KEN Livingstone has denied that the transfer of the East London Line to a private operator in 2010 is akin to the privatisation of the national rail network by the Tories, as a poll by the RMT union found that 74% of respondents wanted the service to remain being run by the public sector. The extended East London Line will eventually form part of Transport for London’s London Rail concession. But Livingstone reacted angrily to suggestions that this amounted to a BR-style sell-off of par

It was the nineteenth century playwright Oscar Wilde who coined the aphorism, “A cynic is somebody who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Many people in transport feel that this sums up the attitude of HM?Treasury to public transport in the UK for the last 60 or so years: that is, ever since they assumed responsibility for funding the industry in the aftermath of the Second World War. A whole range of examples are prayed in aid of this assertion, from the de

TRANSPORT FOR LONDON’S plans for a new bus garage in West London have been dealt a fatal blow with the news that planning permission for the planned facility in North Action has again been turned down on appeal by Ealing Borough Council. It follows the rejection of original plans for the site last year by the planning committee. In his written verdict, planning inspector David Cullingford said that the garage, on land owned by TfL adjacent to the A40 in West London, went against plans t

Southeastern has unveiled a full-scale display model of its new Hitachi Class 395 “bullet” trains, which are being built to operate high speed services between London and Kent on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link from 2009. The full-scale model (pictured) was put on show at a business park in Ashford on June 23. The Kent town is just one of locations which will benefit from the arrival of the new trains. Journeys from Ashford into London currently take up to 83 minutes, but this will f

Network Rail and First Great Western should stop hiding behind ageing infrastructure as an excuse for rock bottom train punctuality in the Great Western region, Chris Bolt has warned. The ORR chairman indicated that his current investigation into the region’s substandard performance had found poor local management, as well as the condition of the infrastructure, to be the root cause. Bolt said the situation was an example of where better working relationships and joint structures b