Routemaster replacement will be accessible, says London transport boss

By Paul Carter with the Conservatives in Birmingham

A key member of Boris Johnson’s team has told Disability Now that a replacement for the Routemaster will be fully accessible for wheelchair-users.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative conference, Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor’s director for transport policy,  said the new design for the iconic vehicle would be “fully DDA compliant”.

This summer, Transport for London (TfL) launched a “Design a Bus for London” competition to try to secure an accessible, environmentally-friendly design.

Mr Ranger said they had already received more than 400 entries.

“I haven’t seen the entries and I don’t want to pre-judge what the design may be, but there could be several ways it could be done,” he said. “But a key part of the design has to be that it will be accessible.”

It was revealed that the contract to build the new buses could be put out to tender as early as next year, and that several companies had already expressed an interest in building them.

He said there would be a full consultation before the winning design was put into production.