Transport for London has retired its iconic fleet of “hop on, hop off” Routemaster buses on the number 15 route, the capital’s last running heritage service.
Citing reasons including falling ridership across the central London network and environmental and accessibility limitations, TfL confirmed the classic front-engined double-deckers had been permanently withdrawn.
The 15H route ran between Tower Hill and Trafalgar Square and was operated by Stagecoach London. The 10-strong fleet were the last of London’s world-famous open-backed buses in operation, after the city’s other heritage route to be introduced in 2005, the 9H, was axed in 2014.
The 15H remained but was curtailed to a seasonal service in 2019 to cut costs, with 10 buses operating between 10am-6pm on summer weekends and bank holidays between March and September only.
But due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the heritage route did not operate at all in the 2020 season, saving TfL £825,243 in contract payments to Stagecoach, and will not be coming back.
TfL said the heritage buses were “not needed for the current and predicted customer demand on the corridor” and were neither at ULEZ standards nor step-free, meaning their “continued operation is no longer viable”.
But the reasons for the withdrawal of the heritage buses are contested. The Heritage Routemasters were indeed exempt from ULEZ standards as they were constructed before 1973. It has also been proven possible to convert them to meet the Euro VI engine standards, as had been completed for one owned by Sir Peter Hendy, the former commissioner for TfL.
On the mobility and environmental issues, the chair of the Routemaster Association, Andrew Morgan, said: “They had always run in parallel with fully low-floor accessible vehicles and so operated under an exemption to PSVAR accessibility regulations. And it was such a small operation – only four vehicles a day.”
“It’s just a case of whether or not TfL wanted to find an economical way to do it,” Morgan added. “But the buses were likely seen as frivolous when TfL has bigger priorities, which in the current situation you can understand.”
The network’s financial struggles amid the pandemic, which saw a dramatic decline in passengers, have seen it granted emergency bailout funding from the government worth £3bn since March 2020.
Confirming the extension of financial support last month, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said this was “under the condition that the network must make efficiency savings so it can reach financial sustainability as soon as possible”.
The transport historian and broadcaster Tim Dunn said he felt the writing had been on the wall for some time for “this true London icon”.
“They were popular to look at – who doesn’t love to see an old Routemaster trundle past St Paul’s at Christmas in the snow like a picture postcard,” he said. But while they were charming and historic and of immense heritage value, the operation of the buses had been limited and poor.
“For the last couple of years it’s been a dreadful operation,” Morgan said. “The route was diverted, it ran with irregularity, its ticketing operation was awkward, but there was also no publicity for the route.”
It was also difficult to get an accurate idea of customer demand as many tickets were not counted by conductors, he said, and despite a number of sightseeing and touristic operations, there was nothing else filling the tourism gap that would be left by the iconic Heritage Routemasters’ withdrawal.
“It’s a real shame to lose them. San Francisco and Blackpool have their trams, we have nothing in London now,” he said.