Sir, As the person who commissioned Capoco to come up with a blueprint for a new Routemaster, I must comment on the criticism made by David Brown of Transport for London (Dec 24 ) that re-introducing open-platform buses would require conductors on all routes, costing £600m and leading to significant fare increases.

Even if all 8,000 or so London buses were replaced by a new Routemaster, the £600m bill sounds excessive. Indeed, if TfL did spend £600m per year providing 8,000 new conductors, that would work out at a substantial £75,000 per head.

In the real world, I would imagine that 3,000 new Routemasters, running on Central London routes would be more than adequate, and that 3,000 new conductors would probably cost £100 million per year. I would certainly pay an extra 10 or 20 pence to travel on a bus that was not only quieter and smoother than a conventional bus, but also did not emit any of the nitrogen oxides typical of TfL’s current diesel buses.

Moreover, I would be able to get off this bus pretty much where I wanted, instead of where TfL dictated.

Hilton Holloway

Associate Editor, Autocar

Teddington, Middx

Sir, The Times and its readers have for many years used the length of a Routemaster bus as a unit of measurement. The proposal to introduce a new Routemaster, some 1.4m longer than the original, will cause immense confusion and must be resisted.

David T. Staples

London N8

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