Before today there were just 13 hybrid buses operating on London routes, all manufactured by Wrightbus of Ballymena. Seven single-deckers were introduced on route 360 in 2006 followed by five more on route 129. A lone double-decker has been working route 141 since March last year. By the time you read this the hybrid total will have increased to 38 and by the end of January, to 56. Horseguards Parade is the location for the unveiling of a further 25 hybrids, which will appear on routes 16, 141, 276, 328 and E8 from next Wednesday.
A hybrid takeover is underway. There will be another 300 in service by 2011 and TfL reckons that by Olympic year every addition to the fleet will be a hybrid. These may include a "New Routemaster" or two, though that remains gloriously uncertain. The one top new fact about Boris's Bus is that the result of the competition to design it has been delayed until this month - you might have worked that out already - due to, I'm told, the sheer number of entrants.
Which company gets to make them is, of course, a separate question. Perhaps it will partly depend on how well the respective manufacturers of the latest hybrid bunch perform over the coming months. As well as Wrightbus, which has a new model out, Volvo, Alexander Dennis and Optare have provided some of today's newcomers. "We would hope that over the next six months to a year we'll learn a lot about emissions, operational issues, reliability, maintenance and general performance of the buses," a TfL spokeswoman tells me.
She adds: "Getting different vehicles from different operators allows us to test different types of hybrid technology from different suppliers. It also helps to create competition. Rather than ending up with one type of hybrid from one manufacturer, we hope to have manufacturers competing to supply hybrid buses to the London market, as this will help drive down the capital cost of the vehicles."
Value-for-money message sent and received. TfL loves Boris. Boris loves TfL.
