This book tells the story of the New Routemaster (a.k.a. New Bus for London (NBfL), Boris Bus, Borismaster or LT) from the competition to design a 21st century successor to the classic Routemaster to the construction, design and launch into service of the new bus.
The book is divided into chapters covering the following topics:
- Boris Johnson’s election pledge to introduce a successor to the Routemaster
- The design competition, including artist’s impressions of the various designs submitted
- Designs created by the final two shortlisted builders, Wrightbus and Alexander Dennis
- The bodywork designs by Heatherwick Studio following the selection of Wrightbus of Ballymena as the winning builder
- Unveiling the prototype vehicle
- The launch of the first vehicles in Ballymena and London
- The prototypes at work
- NBfLs on tour abroad, including visits to mainland Europe, the USA, Latin America, Hong Kong and Singapore
- NfBLs in production, entry to service, and Customer Assistant training
- Visits of NBfLs to other UK bus networks, including artists’ impressions of the vehicles in the liveries of the respective operators
- Advertising liveries
- New double deck bus designs launched since the NBfL: the Enviro400, MetroDecker, the Gemini 3 and the StreetDeck
- “Boris Bus” sculptures on show at a bus sculpture event in Trafalgar Square
Published 2015. Hardback. Over 400 colour photos. 208 pages.