London's Routemaster bus of the 21st century

"Say hello to my little friend!", ...I mean say hello to the new Routemaster bus of London, which should come into service in 2012. There has been a competition, where people had to send in their designs for the new London bus and this is the winner. The new Routemaster has been designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Wrightbus of Ballymena. The original Routemaster was introduced in 1956 and a number of them are still in use on heritage routes in London today. I remember when the original Routemasters got withdrawn from regular routes in 2005, it was awful, mainly because of the loss of the hop on & hop off door at the back, but I also do prefer the classic look of the original Routemaster.

One thing which I can say I like about the new bus is the bringing back of the hop on & hop off door, and I don't think I'm the only person in London that prefers their buses with that. It's also good that it's going to be a hybrid car with the most recent green technology, so it will be much more environmentally friendlier than any other buses in the streets. The 2 sets of stairs and 3 doors will be quite useful on a crowded bus as well. But I still have to say that If I compare the modern style Routemaster to the original one, the original wins, hands down!

Below is a video talking in detail about the new bus for London.

Boris Johnson unveils a mock up of the new Routemaster bus
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London's new Routemaster bus
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The new Routemaster bus is a design cacophony