Boris Johnson’s £100 million pound a year bus blunder slammed
Ken Livingstone and Jim Fitzpatrick, Under Secretary of State for Transport, have called for Boris Johnson's Transport Manifesto, launched earlier this week, to be officially withdrawn after it was confirmed that it had underestimated the costs of Boris Johnson's bus policy by at least £100 million a year.
Detailed enquiries made by Guardian journalist Dave Hill have now confirmed that Boris Johnson's transport manifesto for London, launched earlier this week, is completely wrongly costed. (Articles here and here.)
Boris Johnson had claimed that his central policy of reintroducing buses with conductors would cost £8 million a year. The real cost is well over £100 million a year. This would require raising bus fares in London by 15 per cent - a single bus fare on Oyster card would go up from 90p to £1.05 and the cost of a weekly bus pass from £13 to £15.
Boris Johnson ridiculously yesterday still attempted to defend his £8 million a year claim.
Ken Livingstone said: "There is now no doubt whatever that Boris Johnson has made a £100 million a year error in the cost of his transport policies. Boris Johnson's transport manifesto is shown to be fatally flawed and completely wrongly costed. This is monumental incompetence.
"As the costings of his transport manifesto have been shown to be entirely wrongly calculated this transport manifesto must now be formally withdrawn. Boris Johnson must admit this incompetence and must now present a transport manifesto to Londoners that contains honest and accurate costs so Londoners can judge it.
"Someone who does not know to within £100 million a year what is the cost of his bus policy, when six million Londoners a day travel by bus, would be even more of a catastrophe for London if put in charge of huge multi-billion pound projects such as Crossrail or the tube modernisation."
Jim Fitzpatrick, Transport Minister, and Labour MP for Poplar and Canning Town, said: "David Cameron will be embarrassed to find that the basic figures about the cost of running a bus service are beyond his candidate for Mayor. This serious blunder proves right all those who predicted that Boris Johnson would be a disaster for London. To put forward a policy for London that is over a £100 million pounds short and then to stand by it when all the facts show it is wrong, demonstrates that Boris Johnson could not be trusted with London's transport system. It is not worth taking risks with the busiest and largest bus service in Britain."
Notes to editors
On the Vanessa Feltz show on 28 February Boris Johnson claimed that the cost of his policy of bringing back a bus with conductors would be £8 million a year: "It's absolutely true that if you are going to bring back a Routemaster, or have a new Routemaster, you would need a conductor with them. I have looked at the expense of that. It would cost £8million to have conductors on each of these buses per year". (Article here).
He repeated this claim at the Transport Times transport hustings on 4 March. His transport manifesto repeats the pledge to introduce a new bus ‘with conductors' (p7).
On the Vanessa Feltz show he promised to replace all bendy buses with these new buses. In his transport manifesto he does not place an upper limit on the number of the new buses with conductors.
Boris Johnson's calculation is monumentally incompetent and shows he has no knowledge of of how a transport system runs whatever. His claimed costing is made by looking at the two existing Routemaster routes for tourists and visitors TfL maintains. Here the salary of the conductor is slightly under £25,000. Boris Johnson wrongly believes that there are 337 bendy buses and attempts to defend his cost calculation as follows "That is £24,600 per conductor. If you replaced the 337 bendy buses with new Routemasters, with conductors, that would cost £8,290,200 per year."
http://davehill.typepad.com/london3ms/2008/03/costing-bus-con.html
However this calculation is totally illegitimate as was pointed out by Ken Livingstone campaign earlier this week and has now been confirmed.
- The existing tourist Routemaster routes operate only from 9.30 - 6.30 and therefore require only 1 shift of conductors and drivers. A heavy normally operating bus route requires three shifts. This one single fact triples the cost of conductors salaries for every bus to £75,000 a year and shows Boris Johnson's figures to be totally wrong.
- Boris Johnson has not taken into account that Routemasters are 50% smaller than bendy buses, his proposed new Routemaster seats only 76 people compared to a bendy bus's 149, therefore requiring almost 50 per cent more buses to operate for the same number of passengers. This requires not only over 1,700 conductors, for 600 buses, but over 600 new drivers for the extra buses.
- Boris Johnson has not factored in any cost at all for the purchase of his new buses which, for a specially designed bus with a small run, would be high.
- Smaller errors made by Boris Johnson but which show the incompetence of the document are that he has forgotten to add on costs such as national insurance, pension, uniform and recruitment to conductors salaries.
Boris Johnson has ludicrously continued to attempt to defend his £8 million figure for bus costs despite these absolutely fundamental errors. He is has claimed ‘serious flaws' in the figures journalist Dave Hill has now obtained from Transport for London but has been completely unable to defend his £8 million a year figure.
The real facts - all figures from questions asked of Transport for London (TfL) by journalist Dave Hill and of the Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone campaign teams.
There are currently 399 bendy buses in London. Bendy buses carry 149 passengers and a double decker carries only 90. To have the same passenger capacity 620 double decker buses would be required. Approximately 3 shifts per bus are required on intensive routes requiring 1,736 extra conductors and 651 additional drivers. The annual salary and add on costs (national insurance, pension, uniform and recruitment) of a conductor is £28,000 and a driver £35,000. This requires an extra expenditure of £72 million (£49 million for conductors and £23 million for drivers).
However the proposed ‘replacement Routemaster' of Boris Johnson is a bus that is not currently produced and 620 is an extremely small run for a specially designed bus - at present TfL purchases standard buses with much lower cost. TfL estimates that the extra cost in purchasing special buses would be £40 million a year.
The total cost of the bus policy endorsed by Boris Johnson would therefore be £112 million a year as opposed to his claim of £8 million a year. Financing this would require a 15 per cent increase in bus fares with the cost of a single bus journey on Oyster to rising from 90p to £1.05 and a weekly bus pass from £13 to £15.