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Title: Review of 2011
Summary: A review of events in 2011
Category: Annual Reviews
Author: Thomas Young
Posted: 17/01/2012
Last updated: 17/01/2012
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2011 was another interesting year for the service vehicle fleets. The first 7xxx fleetnumbers appeared early on (the first was 7037F which may have arrived in late 2010), with 7246VW being the highest reported by the end of the year. There are of course lots of gaps as usual. While the Transit remained the most popular model, there was a noticeable shift away from Ford for smaller vehicles. As far as we know, only two Transit Connects joined the central fleet during the year while no Focus cars were reported at all. In their place were several batches of cars and light vans from Peugeot, Renault and Volkswagen. I am told this does not reflect an overall vehicle policy but is merely the result of deals available at the time orders were placed. A nine-month break in deliveries for Tube Lines was ended early in the year, with deliveries since then concentrated in distinct blocks of fleetnumbers. However, only 30 new vehicles for Tube Lines were reported during the year, compared to 139 for LUL.
Although exact figures are not available (due to the lack of official information), 236 central fleet vehicles were added to the database during the year. These comprised 85 mid-sized vans, 65 cars, 61 light vans, 17 mid-sized trucks, 6 minibuses and 2 buses. 83 of the additions were Fords, 36 Volkswagens, 31 Peugeots, 24 Mercedes, 22 Renaults, 17 Vauxhalls and 23 from other makes (Citroen, Dennis, Mitsubishi, Optare, Smart and Toyota). The decline of Vauxhall (traditionally the main alternate supplier) to sixth place is notable. There were no additions to the owned (lorry) fleet, while leased fleet numbers were applied to 183 vehicles. Of the remaining 53, 21 were leased vehicles for which fleetnumbers were not yet known, with the other 32 being genuine un-numbered vehicles.
Vehicles returned off lease were mainly from the 6200-6600 range although many lower numbers continued in use longer than expected. Withdrawals included most of the remaining vehicles in Metronet livery (perhaps as few as three survived into 2012) and many of the LUL rebranded ones.
London Buses Operations replaced its first batch of Incident Response vans with a broadly identical set of Mercedes vans, but also added a pair of hybrid Ford Transit vans. Most of the LBSL Honda Civic hybrid cars went off lease during the year. Although there had been 16 of them, the only replacements we are aware of are four each of Toyota Prius and Ford Fiesta cars, the latter notable in being the first such since 2003. London Buses Infrastructure also took some 'green' Transits, four electric vans joining their fleet of VW Transporters.
125 bus company service vehicles were added to the database during the year, although some would have been in use for a while, while others were no doubt missed. 46 of the additions were Vauxhalls, narrowly beating the 44 Fords. The only other make to see double-figure additions was Carbodies, due to Arriva Southern Counties apparently insatiable appetite for former taxis to use as crew ferries. There were more cars (48) added than mid-sized vans (35) or light vans (25). Apart from the Arriva SC taxis, the only companies taking notable quantities of vehicles during the year were Arriva London (yet more Vauxhall Corsa cars), Go-Ahead London (a variety of anonymous crew ferry vehicles following successes with bus route tendering) and Stagecoach (who totally renewed their SV fleet with Transit vans and minibuses). The largest vehicle added to stock was a second-hand Volvo tow-truck bought by Ensign. This proved to be in poor condition however and was sold a few weeks later.
Four vehicles operated by Sovereign Recovery were also added to the database during the year, giving a grand total of 365.
8,450 SV sightings were logged in 2011.
In terms of the website itself, a fairly fundamental but largely invisible change was a switch of hosting supplier in mid-year. The hosting service was having increasingly regular reliability problems, and this co-incided with my other provider introducing some of the features that the LTSV site needed. A switch seemed the obvious choice and although the only outward change was the web address reverting to the original ltsv.com, there was a lot of behind the scenes work involved. Other changes to the site were minimal. Slightly larger thumbnails were introduced in March (another long-winded process), while a few small page tweaks were brought in. The number of registered members increased by a modest 11 (to 159), while several new photographic contributors came on board. The site does remain reliant on a small number of very active members and my thanks as always goes to them.
458 photographs were added to the website during the year, mainly covering topical developments but with a few historical and non-London shots included for interest. A total of 3770 photographs is now on the site, of which almost 45% include a Ford vehicle! The main LTSV photo collection is kept on my PC and currently amounts to over 14,500 photographs, taking up 22GB. 1,433 were added during the year, meaning that I am publishing about 32% of receipts.
I had a new service vehicle fleetlist booklet published by LOTS, as their SUP24E. Sales of the earlier editions had evidently been sufficient to warrant continuation. By the way, there is no prospect of LOTS doing an updated SUP15 (complete SV fleetlist) for the foreseeable future. When the time does eventually come, the main issue will be whether it can fit in a single book!
As I seem to have been saying for the past few years, I have many ideas for a revamped version of the LTSV site. This would be incremental rather than fundamental, although a cosmetic overhaul would be included. I am keeping a log of my ideas for now, including allowing more editing rights to key contributors, including maps of locations and sightings, and capturing the large amount of historical information (primarily allocations) that is still out there. Luckily, the site seems to work quite well as it is so there is no great urgency. My free time is distinctly limited at present and my two other (rail-related) websites are more overdue some attention.
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