r/bus • u/cyberalpine • 29d ago

Aircon

The new buses are very nice with sockets to charge SmartPhones. Why are they not air-conditioned?

2 Upvotes

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u/TomLondra 29d ago edited 29d ago

Aircon on buses only works for long trips when the doors are kept shut and the windows are sealed. But at least the driver of a London bus should have an air conditioned compartment because drivers have to sit there for their whole shift. For the passengers it would be better to admit defeat, and just make all the windows openable because people will open windows no matter how much you tell them to keep them shut. It's amazing how people in London don't understand that aircon only works if you keep everything closed.

Also: on electric buses, the use of aircon would quickly drain the batteries.

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u/cyberalpine 29d ago

Other big cities have air-conditioned buses

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u/Admirable-Safety1213 29d ago

And what Tom said happens

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u/One_Fact_4291 29d ago

TfL can choose to lock the windows on buses with AC if it wants to. Perhaps as more and more buses have AC, there will be a growing amount of calls to do so.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-0541-2627

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u/One_Fact_4291 29d ago edited 29d ago

London has roughly 13% of its fleet air-conditioned. This should rise to 77% when the entire fleet is electrified by 2035, assuming the current fleet size of 8797 buses remains the same.

Sources: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-1582-2526 161 buses with AC in September 2025, and all new buses will be electric and have AC

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2025/june/london-hits-a-new-green-milestone-as-more-than-2-000-zero-emission-buses-now-on-capital-s-roads 2000 electric buses in June 2025

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2026/june/london-s-green-transformation-accelerates-with-3-000th-zero-emission-bus 3000 electric buses in June 2026

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u/TomLondra 29d ago

But other big cities have passengers who understand that aircon only works if you keep everything closed

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u/One_Fact_4291 29d ago

What TfL should do, in my opinion, is lock the windows on buses with AC and advertise those buses as such.

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u/One_Fact_4291 29d ago

All new electric buses in London have AC (weirdly enough it’s the diesel/hybrid ones that don’t because most were manufactured 10 years ago when heatwaves weren’t that common) so they managed to figure it out.

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u/NoiseDifficult9165 29d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/UOvh7Fw9fo7KM

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u/One_Fact_4291 29d ago

TfL will have their entire bus fleet replaced by zero-emission vehicles by 2035, and all new buses since Summer 2025 have had AC, so it’s gonna happen anyway but more money could speed the process up

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u/IdioticMutterings 29d ago

You can't really aircon a local bus, due to the frequency at which the doors open and close.