Boris On The Buses (Part 4,672,914)

As the man who first exposed the financial inexactitude behind Boris Johnson's "new Routemaster" proposals I've got to say I'm amazed that six week later he's still getting his abacus in a twist about the cost of the scheme. Actually, other people are in a muddle about it too, but Boris's latest comments are making matters even worse for him. The story so far:

Episode One: Boris tells Vanessa Feltz it would cost £8 million to put conductors on the existing bendy bus routes. The following day, Ken Livingstone claims it would cost £80 million, though his website swiftly reduces that to £70 million. They can't both be right.

Episode Two: I ask TfL to tell me what it thinks the conductors would cost, and to make an assessment of the cost of implementing the entire Johnson "new Routemaster" policy, buses and all. They think it would cost £49 million for the conductors and a total of £112 million a year to put the whole thing into effect. This means TfL thought both candidates were wrong on the cost of conductors, Boris by the most. Team Ken, however, immediately claimed victory with regard to the overall figure because it nearly matched their estimate of £110 million. In fact, they reached that figure by a different route from TfL: they had a higher figure for conductors but forgot to include the cost of hiring the additional drivers that would be required if existing passenger capacity was to be maintained (double deckers can carry fewer passengers than bendys, so you'd need more of them, hence more drivers). I did point this out to them at the time, but they weren't about to look a gift bus in the mouth and, after all, I suppose they could have stuck on a bit extra for the drivers if they'd been so inclined.

Episode Three: Team Boris accuses TfL of being "highly mischevious" and said it stuck by its £8 million figure. The suggestion that TfL was deliberately generating Ken-friendly figures was repeated in an Evening Standard article on 19th March, despite TfL's estimate having been broadly confirmed by the independent company TAS in the meantime. But, of course, the TfL figures were at odds with Livingstone's as well as with Johnson's. Funnily enough, the Standard story didn't mention that.

Episode Four: On Newsnight, Boris Johnson still wouldn't offer a total figure for his "new Routemaster" policy. His earlier defence - the one his campaign presented to me - had been that you can't reliably estimate the cost of a bus that has yet to be designed. This might not be very satisfactory, but at least it sounds plausible. Instead of it using it, though, Johnson claimed it would cost about the same as Livingstone's proposed "hybrid" buses. And he again failed to make clear that the £8 million figure referred only to the cost of conductors. True, it was miles out, but not £100 million out, and could have been finessed - as his campaign team did in response to my questions - as enough for an initial roll out, one which Londoners could be said to support.

Episode Five: In a well-executed sting operation, Johnson revealed to an undercover Livingstone supporter that he did, in fact, have a figure for his new Routemaster scheme - "about £100 million," which is pretty close to the £110 million the Livingstone campaign had said right at the beginning, and the £112 million TfL said it would be - the very calculation Team Boris told me it was "highly mischievious" of it to have provided. Result? A somewhat vague but, nonetheless, serviceable and potentially popular policy looking a complete and utter mess.

Comments

[Phil Taylor]

Dave,

I suspect what is going on here is an unwillingness on the part of the Boris team to be drawn into a detailed debate with the Mayor on the minutiae of bus finances. Ultimately the Mayor will come off worst - more later, but I suspect they don't want to use up too much airtime on this issue. Livingstone has spent 8 years close to these numbers as chairman of TfL and is capable of spinning them his way whilst avoiding explaining some of the real problems with them.

A lot of what the Mayor says about London's buses is rubbish. They are overcrowded at peak times and empty at off peak leading to a total occupancy of only 15. This means that buses are only 38% less green (CO2 consuming) than all cars on average (TfL figures) and probably no greener than small engined cars. Bus ridership in Manchester and other major urban centres is about the same as London's (DoT figures) so London isn't any kind of outrider in getting people on the buses.

Financially London's buses are a disaster. On the current account TfL lost £617 million on the buses alone in 2006/7. In 2006/7 every bus journey cost TfL 87p but they only managed to collect 55p. Doh! Their bus fare dodging bill is £46.7 million of which £8 million is down to the bendy buses that Boris is seeking to replace. With headline cash fares of £2 and Oyster fares of £1.50 something is clearly awry.

Don't forget Livingstone has invested a lot of our money on telling us about his unaffordable bus fare cut. He used the front page of the Londoner for three months running and there are still TfL poster sites near me carrying this copy. Only all that electioneering was paid for out of the precept and through TfL funds. Fare rises never got this prominence indeed any promotion at all.

One of the Mayor’s own capital expenditure plans for the buses, announced last November, is to spend £10 million on just 10 experimental hydrogen powered buses. The Mayor might think it is his job to give US bus manufacturers R&D money but some of the rest of us are not so sure.

It does not take much wit to work out how you replace one capital asset, the bendy buses, which will have a finite life in any case, with another, newer one, the new Routemaster, and to fund this from the savings you will make by having bus conductors to clamp down on the fare dodging - £8 million will fund a big capital programme. We might not get £100 million of new buses in Boris’s first year but I don’t think anyone was planning for that. The trouble is this kind of argument is difficult to communicate against a background of Livingstone inspired hysteria and misinformation.

It's quite understandable that Livingstone wants to talk about his strong points and vice versa. The Boris campaign have other fish to fry silly. The buses still tend to be a Zone 1 issue and Boris is busily running the outer boroughs talking about their problems.

[Jasper Milvain]

He's still attacking TfL for its figures in the latest Time Out, by the way.

[Damian Hockney AM]

On the day that the Tory candidate made the £8 million claim, we called several journalists about it and indeed came to the £100 million+ very easily. It is not rocket science and as you have said is quite straightforward to calculate. However, the infuriating thing here is this. Many of the journalists said - as indeed did a BBC programme - that if I was standing for Mayor they couldn't quote me as such! Another network said they could interview someone else on my team but we mustn't mention we were standing. It would be 'unfair' on other 'minor' parties. This is a good example of how the state rules on the restriction of coverage of 'minor' parties works against democracy, while pretending to 'guarantee' a level playing field.

[Liam]

This, with a string of other mistakes, means THREE anti-Boris stories have appeared in the Standard today… remarkable.

…Boris says that he would reverse the smoking ban in pubs…. Then admits he’s taken £10k from the Tobacco industry…..

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23478881-details/Boris%3A+Smoking+ban+referendum+I+take+it+back/article.do

… then he admits on hidden camera that his “£8 million” bendy bus replacements will actually cost £100 millon… (although you've covered this!)

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23478688-details/My+bus+plans+will+cost+%C2%A3100m%2C+admits+blundering+Boris/article.do

…. Then he tells an asian presenter that he can ‘out ethnic’ her!

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23478964-details/Boris+to+Asian+host%3A+I%27ll+%27out-ethnic%27+you/article.do

[Rob]

"Then he tells an asian presenter that he can ‘out ethnic’ her!"

Nihal is a him.