Routemaster to take the green road

By Peter Marsh
Published: August 29 2008 19:08

Alexander Dennis, Britain’s biggest bus maker, is stepping up efforts to design a new version of the popular Routemaster bus for London, based around low-energy drive technology such as the use of novel “hybrid” engines.
Colin Robertson, chief executive of the Falkirk-based company, said 80 development engineers were devoting more time to the Routemaster project, following the call by Boris Johnson, the London mayor, to come up with a replacement for the vehicle by the time of the London Olympics in 2012.
“We’ve got a leading position in providing buses for London and we want to keep our top-dog position when it comes to the Routemaster,” Mr Robertson said.
The hybrid engines – based around a system of combining the propulsive power from diesel engines with energy stored in electric batteries – could form the basis for the designs.
Mr Robertson said its output of hybrid buses could rise from about 20 this year to “three or four hundred” by 2012, with a large proportion of these vehicles potentially for London.
The buses use of drive technology designed by BAE Systems for military vehicles.
Mr Robertson hopes to sell the hybrid engine-powered buses in overseas markets, including the US, China and Dubai. He said Alexander Dennis was considering options for building buses in the US, probably in collaboration with a US manufacturer.
It also hopes to build on a partnership in southern China where the company is this year making more than 50 buses on a site run by WZL, a Chinese bus maker, with most vehicles bound for Hong Kong.
Hybrid buses can save up to 30 per cent of the fuel used by conventional diesel-powered buses. The technology is particularly attractive for buses because their slower speeds and continual stopping and starting make the consequent cuts in energy use higher than in the case of hybrid cars.
Mr Robertson said Alexander Dennis’s sales this year should be about £315m, up from £235m last year.
About three-quarters of this year’s sales are expected to be in the UK, with a likely output of buses of about 1,600, split equally between single- and double-deckers.
Operating profits this year are expected by Mr Robertson to be about 5 per cent of sales, up from 4.3 per cent in 2007.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008