London's slowest bus revealed: Number 15 from Tower Hill to Trafalgar Square crawls at 4.9mph - slower than a mouse
From a report in the Daily Mail
- Number 15H bus runs between Tower Hill and Trafalgar Square via Fleet Street
- Service crawls at 4.9mph, making it slower than a running mouse or chicken
- Route operates with a heritage Routemaster but travels at 1.5x walking speed
- London bus passengers travelled at average of 10.6mph from 2017 to 2018
Britain's slowest bus has been revealed to be slower than a mouse or a chicken.
Many
commuters could travel faster by donkey than if they take the number
15H bus that runs between Tower Hill and Trafalgar Square via Fleet
Street in London.
The
service crawls along the capital at just 4.9mph, making it slower than a
running mouse, which can sprint at 8mph, or a chicken, which can do
9mph.
The number 15H bus runs between Tower Hill and Trafalgar Square via Fleet Street in London
The
route, which operates with a heritage Routemaster vehicle, also travels
at only 1.5 times the average walking speed, hardly making it ideal for
those in a rush.
The 15H, which is the
only preserved AEC Routemaster route in London, copies a 2.5-mile
central route taken by the 15 from Blackwall station to Charing Cross
station.
This means it takes about 30 minutes
for the bus to complete the route - which could be completed in just
under 20 minutes by a continually sprinting mouse.
Therefore,
in theory, by the time the mouse completes the route, the bus running
towards Trafalgar Square would have only made it to the Royal Courts of
Justice.
It takes about 30 minutes for the bus to complete the route from Tower Hill to Trafalgar Square - which could be completed in just under 20 minutes by a continually sprinting mouse
The top ten fastest bus routes in London
The next slowest buses is
a school special - the 656 from Emerson Park School in Upminster,
Essex, which runs to Gallows Corner at an average of just 5.1mph.
The
third slowest is the 65X special from Ealing Broadway to Gunnersbury
Park that runs once a year for the London Mela Asian festival, running
at 5.8mph.
In fourth place is the 11
from Fulham Town Hall to Great Winchester Street at 5.9mph, then in
fifth is the 14 from Putney Heath to Warren Street at 6.1mph.
Buses on the 15H route run every
20 minutes from 9.30am to 6.30pm, allowing people to travel on the
iconic Associated Equipment Company Routemasters
Bus
speed data from Transport for London shows passengers travelled at an
average speed of 10.6mph on buses between April 2017 to March 2018.
Richard
Freeston-Clough, from the London TravelWatch watchdog, said: 'We remain
very concerned about bus speeds and therefore journey times for
London's bus passengers. It is a significant reason for the decline in
ridership.
TfL and the London boroughs must do much more than they are in terms of bus priority on the streets buses use
Richard Freeston-Clough, London TravelWatch
'We
have noted that there has been an upturn in speeds in the last few
quarters on some routes, but this is nowhere near up to the speeds of
four years ago.
'In the short term TfL
and the London boroughs must do much more than they are in terms of bus
priority on the streets buses use.'
Claire
Mann, director of bus operations at TfL, said: 'Buses in London are
more reliable than ever and after more than 120 schemes to give buses
priority and a thorough review of traffic light timings, speeds are
improving.
'We remain committed to
improving journeys for Londoners, so we're investing millions of pounds
into bus priority measures, coordinating roadworks better and improving
how we manage our road network.'
