Why we need to be more bendy

A reminder that everything I write here is a personal view. Nothing you read in the following paragraphs is the official position of First Bus or any other organisation.

As deregulation passes its 40th birthday and enters its twilight years, a couple of experiences in the last week have made me think about one of the great missed opportunities of the last four decades. I'm thinking particularly of the industry's refusal to embrace articulated buses and its insistence instead on relying on slower, more cramped, less accessible double deckers.

I've been thinking about it particularly since seeing this immaculate preserved Mercedes Citaro at the Ash Grove Depot Open Day in East London last month. It reminded me what a great step forward they were when they came to the capital, and how sad that they were prematurely retired.

But in particular, two events in the last seven days have reminded me how they could have transformed our urban bus networks:

• Arriving at an airport and needing a shuttle bus, which turned out also to be a bendy Citaro. The bus pulled in, picked up 60-70 waiting passengers (many with luggage) and set off again in barely a minute
• In a busy city centre (I won't say which one), joining the back of a queue of 40-50 people waiting to board a double decker. Then having to shuffle slowly forward for almost five minutes while each passenger in turn had their individual consultation with the driver. And then making painfully slow progress along the route. Each time somebody upstairs wanted to alight, we would stop, wait while they made their way down the steps and out of the bus. Only then could any waiting passengers board, following by an awkward pause while the driver waited for them to make their way to the top deck and find a seat, before we could proceed.

I've been fortunate to have spent lots of time over the years sampling urban bus networks in continental Europe. I always marvel at the way in which an articulated bus can arrive at a packed city centre stop in peak time, disgorge up to 100 people, hoover up a similar number from the kerb and be on its way again in the matter of seconds. As a passenger in that scenario, the feeling of progress is palpable, compared to the agonisingly slow dawdle of many urban routes in this country.

As an industry we have often bemoaned the slow operating speeds of buses in urban areas, blaming congestion and other (perfectly valid) highway constraints and fretting that increases in journey time will push customers to competing modes of transport (or not to travel at all). Yet we are the authors of our own misfortune by relying on vehicles that are inherently slow to operate, and missing the opportunity to offer customers a faster, more accessible and more futuristic solution.

The one that got away: Southampton Route 18

My own great missed opportunity in this regard came towards the end of my stint as Area Director for Go South Coast in 2007, looking after Bluestar and Southern Vectis for Go-Ahead Group.

At that point we'd rebranded the interurban network from Solent Blue Line to Bluestar - a highly successful brand and network that has endured to the current day with very few changes (but many additions thanks to excellent management along the way).

But within our portfolio was route 18, a high frequency corridor linking the large estates of Millbrook and Thornhill on the east and west sides of the city, through the City Centre and the busy shopping districts of Shirley and Bitterne. It was the model of a perfect city bus route, connecting densely populated residential areas (euphemistically known as "good bus territory") with busy shopping areas along with the Central rail station.

Southampton route 18

The route needed a refresh, but the right answer wasn't to call it Bluestar. I was very clear that the Bluestar brand was specifically designed for interurban routes, with a particular set of brand values that would appeal to the more affluent, higher fare paying residents of communities such as Chandlers Ford, Winchester and Hedge End among others.

Southampton was highly competitive, with First (in the guise of the historic municipal operator) providing the main city network. Route 18 was Go-Ahead's only pure city route, and I felt strongly that it needed to be its own brand.

Thinking about how to make a highly visible impact and create a product that was different to anything else in the network, I realised that this route was the perfect candidate for bendy buses. Carrying a strong, unique brand using a distinct colour and with its own brand name, and running at a high frequency, their striking visible presence along the route (and especially in the city centre) would keep them constantly in mind of potential users.

As it happened, at the time there were significant quantities of bendy Citaros - of exactly the type pictured above - being released from London following the decision not to continue with them in the capital. Although they were five years old, I felt they would be absolutely perfect for the route. With boarding and alighting through three doors, they would make rapid progress through city streets, and in particular allow for much quicker loading and unloading at the main City Centre stops.

An odd quirk of the Southampton network was that First had themselves operated bendy buses in the city just a few years previously, with a fleet of Volvos that didn't last long and were withdrawn with much media coverage due to issues with their turntables struggling to cope with the speed bumps along the routes. 

I knew therefore that I would need to win hearts and minds to make this work. In addition, our proposed Citaros would have three doors compared to two on the withdrawn First buses, raising additional challenges. I therefore began consulting the City Council and my own bosses. I knew we would have to tackle the following issues:

• Infrastructure: We would need the Council's help to ensure that when the buses pulled up at a stop, all three doors would be accessible and people wouldn't be stepping out into a railing, or the middle of a junction. Initial observations suggested that the issue were minimal, and the officers with whom I consulted were much more open than I had dared imagine to what we were trying to achieve. As an aside, I've since heard it argued that the need for infrastructure changes is a reason why the deregulated industry can't be expected to contemplate vehicles such as this. I would argue in turn that there are plenty of examples of successful Partnerships where precisely these kind of changes have been made. Moreover, seeking a closer relationship for the delivery of such projects is exactly the kind of thing that might have avoided a rush to franchising in some areas
• Ticketing: The whole concept relied on people just being able to step aboard through three doors simultaneously. Obviously in 2007 all fares were paid in cash, so we knew we would need to get ticketing off bus as far as possible. The objective was therefore to make the price of off bus tickets as attractive as possible, and maximise the range of off bus sales outlets around the city. We'd still have left a 'pay on board' option for those that needed it, but this would have been a single coin (or maximum two coin) flat fare
• Revenue protection: With three doors, the scope for fraudulent travel is obviously high, and was one of the much quoted reasons for the short life of the bendybuses in London. We knew we would make operational savings because we would need fewer buses to maintain the same frequency (thanks to higher running speeds) and I was quite ready to reinvest these savings in additional revenue protection staff. With (initially) a single route to worry about, we had a plan prepared for how they could move swiftly and efficiently across the network, ensuring that customers had a reasonable expectation that they would be checked on any given journey and deterring people from 'taking a chance'. The stipulations were that they would be plain clothed, in casual clothes, so that they wouldn't be obvious to customers as the bus approached a stop, but also to avoid appearing too authoritarian; that they would check customer tickets and not check the drivers - we needed the drivers fully on board to make it work, and not fearing the appearance of a 'Blakey' character; and that their main role was to promote safe, compliant travel, so they would have considerable discretion to give advice and warnings, and to be seen as a positive feature of the service by the assumed vast majority of honest customers.

Sadly, the project never happened. Just at the point where I was starting to believe it would become a reality, there was a change of leadership within Go South Coast and support for the project vanished. Instead, the route became part of the Bluestar brand and has been through several generations of conventional bus types. I don't make any criticism of those decisions - they were made in good faith, for sound operational reasons, by people for whom I have the utmost respect - but I will always feel an opportunity was missed to do something really visible and dramatic. For those who don't use buses regularly, the 18 just became (in my view) anonymous in a sea of blue buses.

A number 18, along with a not-an-18. Photo: Nico Laizans

For the brand and livery enthusiasts reading this, I'm sorry to say we never quite got to a proposed brand name. I knew the livery would be orange, providing the striking visible impact needed. In keeping with the other brands in the portfolio at the time - Bluestar, Red Rocket and Solent Shuttle - a space-themed name would have been inevitable. I imagine we'd have probably ended up with something 'sun' related, but never quite got that far.

So why mention this now?

With the advent of franchising, the metropolitan authorities have a renewed opportunity to consider what the bus of the future could look like. In areas where franchising is not being pursued, strengthened partnerships provide a similar opportunity.

In my view it's time to look again at the role of the bendybus in providing a modern, futuristic solution for urban transport, taking account of the following:

• Operating speed: In 2007, everyone paid cash and mobile phones (such as they existed) could barely send a text, far less hold a bus ticket. Digital ticketing means that the need for people to have an interview with a driver and pay a fare (and therefore to funnel everyone through a single entrance door) can be virtually eliminated. Faster journeys provide an improved customer experience, improve the mode share for public transport against private cars, and allow more service to be provided with less resource
• Accessibility: For those for whom a low, level floor is important, a double decker is just a very tall minibus. In particular, the desire to accommodate two wheelchair spaces in new bus designs mean that many models now have hardly any seats at all in the low-floor section. A bendy bus can provide a huge range of seats at floor level, making them far more user-friendly
• Image: They look modern and convey a sense of something being different and futuristic. Bus design has undoubtedly advanced over the decades, but to the untutored eye, an Enviro 400 MMC is not visibly massively different to (say) an Optare Spectra from 25 years ago

Freed from the need to stick to the conventional bus types that the industry has worshipped for so long, and with the ability to bring the transport network and highway planning under a single roof, I think there is a real opportunity for forward-thinking urban authorities to plaster their arterial corridors with best-in-class bus priority, and the buses that will make the most of them, moving the greatest number of people in the shortest time. 

Of course there will always be issues and challenges to consider.

There will be those that cite London's rejection of them, and their lack of adoption in the wider nation, as evidence that they are inherently unsuitable for our roads. They're not. They work perfectly well in many many parts of the world, including most of Europe, where the roads are the same shape and width as they are here!

Some may argue that they take up too much road space. Objectively, of course each vehicle does take up more space than a single double decker. But the speed advantages they offer mean they can clear city centre bus stops so much quicker, meaning that a given stop can process so many more vehicles in a given time period. I would argue they need less space overall, while delivering a better and faster service. Almost every driver I know who's driven one will tell you they are as manouevrable, if not more so, than a longer rigid single deck bus.

It remains one of my biggest career regrets that I didn't have the opportunity to convert Southampton's route 18 to articulated bus operation. I'm sad that the wider industry has never realised their advantages. With the industry (and our partners) heading into a new world, I hope this could be a new dawn for the bendy bus!