London OPOS replace two-man omnibuses

Press, 26 December 1985, Page 19

London OPOS replace two-man omnibuses

By MARCUS ELIASON of Associated Press London

if things aren’t busy. They may not fit into a balance sheet, but as anyone who has travelled on a London bus knows, the conductors add a human touch to a streamlined, computerised, corporate Britain, and the tourists simply love them.

In the latest move to drag Britain into line with the rest of Europe, London is getting rid of its bus conductors.

And why not, the outsider may ask. Britain has survived the demise of the shilling and the paper £1 note, started to adapt to litres and kilograms and learned to live without an empire. Surely there is life after OPOS, as the one-person-operated buses are known.

“I suppose you could say we’re losing a bit of tradition, but unfortunately tradition doesn’t pay the bills,” said Roland ClausenThue, spokesperson for London Regional Transport’s bus division.

But in a society instinctively suspicious of change, the demise of the bus conductor is not going unchallenged. The uniformed “clippies” - so-nicknamed from the days when tickets were clipped - on their red double-decker juggernauts have long been a fixture on the London landscape, and their job extends well beyond collecting fares. They help the elderly and disabled on and off the bus, find a seat for a pregnant woman, wake a snoozing passenger when it’s time to get off, or just sit and chat with the regular commuters

The transport system wants to halve its annual running costs .of £l9O million ($535.8 million) over the next three years. But opponents of OPOS say they will make things worse and end up costing the taxpayer more.

“Not only does it slow down buses, it actually costs more,” said Duncan Milligan, spokesperson for Capital, a pressure group whose battle against the oneoperator buses is highlighted by catchy fullpage newspaper advertisements. He pointed to an Oxford University study which said passengers were 5-1 in fav-

our of conductors. The arguments against OPOS are that their journeys are up to 15 per cent slower because the driver can not drive while collecting fares; that it makes travel harder for the elderly and disabled; that it drives away passengers and makes them use their cars, adding to congestion; and that the money saved by doing away with conductors will be cancelled out by the dole money they will have to receive. On conductor buses, passengers board through a capacious rear ■ platformdoor. On OPOS they file one by one through an automatic door. On conductor buses travellers wait for the “clippie” to collect the 2 fares, which vary according to distance travelled. On OPOS they pay the driver,. and if passengers don’t have the exact fare, they keep the others waiting. The nimble can jump aboard a conductor bus at a traffic light, and passengers can pour out through the door at stops instead of singly. The conductors’ union is also resisting the change, along with two consumer

watchdog, groups representing the passengers. Mr Clausen-Thue said in an interview that conductors would be retrained as drivers or for other tasks, and nobody would be fired, Mr Milligan agreed that Europe manages fine with OPOS, but attributed this to the widespread use of single fares and season tickets, In Europe a passenger carries a season ticket and does not have to trouble the driver. Inspectors occasionally check tickets, but generally an honour system operates. "I don’t know whether Europeans are more honest than us British,” Mr Milligan said. But he pointed out that when an honour system was tested on a London commuter train route, “there were so many bowler-hatted, pinstripesuited gentlemen dodging fares that it didn’t work.” Mr Clausen-Thue said 65 per cent of London buses are OPOS, with the fleet’s 4900 remaining conductors serving busy routes in the city centre. All will eventually be phased out, he said, depending on how soon time-saving season tickets can be widely introduced.