London: Doube-Decker Buses Combat Torrid Summers
 

As temps reportedly reached 97 degrees in some Tube cars (according to a NYT's article)recently and Tim O'Toole, managing director of the London Underground acknowledged that "it can get hot in the Tube in summer." Though there is no remedy in sight for piping hot tube cars, London's Bus system is usuing a high-rech solution to the problem of at times uncomfortably hot double-decker buses:
he says that 2,300 out of Transport for London's fleet of 4,900 double-decker buses are being euipped with better venitilation systems to help deal with high temps we sometimes encounter during the summer months"
the high-rech solution: windows that open!

Yes that's the novel air conditioning system that by next year will extend to the whole fleet. I hope TFL fas patented the the opening windows thing as transport systems all over the world will surely copy this ingenious plan.

I never travel to Paris or London during the Summer. Consider how much you use the metro it can be quite uncomfortable.

We hit a hot spell (80-ish) a few years ago in London in April and about died from the heat on the buses (and we know heat, we live in AZ) :-)

Wow. There are no words...

WHO but the Londoners could have come up with such ingenuity, such innovation, after so many, many decades of NO ventilation on their bus system, not even hot air vents? Stunning!

I am quite sure that the Hong Kong surface transportation officials, for one, will be rushing over to the former mother country to study this most singular development so that they too, may seek to copy it. (Of course, that means that Hong Kong will have to move its transp. system back to the 19th century, instead of the 22nd century where it is presently!)

And as for those piping hot Tube cars, yes, an oven like atmosphere doesn't quite capture the stench or the utter feeling of being in the inner circles of the inferno when there's a hot day in Londontown. Medieval London at its best.

The amazing thing is that those fancy buses in Hong Kong are mostly designed in the UK. They came in as kits from UK and only the final assembly was done locally.

I was just in London last week and experienced those devilish temperatures in the Tube. They were running regular announcements reminding passengers to carry water with them. It was pure misery at peak travel times.