London Bus Watch by Tom Kearney

By email and blog post 10 December 2024 Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London and TfL Chair City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE cc: Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Transport; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; London Assembly Transport Committee Members; Tom Kearney (@comadad) Dear Mr. Mayor, On 3 December I received a response (below) to my 29 October Open Letter (TfL's 'Safety Scandal' will be your Legacy! An Open Letter to the Mayor of London from Kevin Mustafa) from your Deputy Seb Dance that confirmed to me that both TfL and you appear to be incapable of showing either the compassion...

One of over Ten Thousand TfL Bus Crash Survivors since 18 December 2009 (Photo: Tom Edwards) Remember Remember the 5th of November. Thanks to you London Bus Drivers, I know I sure will. Back on 18 September 2013, I attended a meeting here in Palestra House initiated by Victoria Borwick AM and hosted by the then-MD for Surface Transport, Leon Daniels, now a Director of TfL Bus Contractor RATP. At that meeting, Daniels proudly announced that the reason why TfL's management of London's Public Bus Services was so successful was because its Bus Contracts work on a single overriding principle that "Time is Money", which guaranteed faster and more reliable bus journey times for London's Bus Users. Thanks to Victoria Borwick's...

By email and blogpost Elly Baker, Chair London Assembly Transport Committee City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE 1 November 2024 cc: London Assembly Transport Committee Members, Tom Kearney #LondonBusWatch RE: 5 November London Bus Drivers' Protest at TfL Headquarters - Open Letter With the support of Unite the Union, on Tuesday, 5 November I will join many London Bus Drivers in a march and demonstration at TfL Headquarters to hold Sadiq Khan to account for the 'Safety Scandal' that has resulted in the deaths of at least 86 people from Bus Safety Incidents and 76 London Bus Drivers from Covid-19 while he has served as TfL Chair and Mayor of London. We are demanding that TfL and the Mayor immediately...

By email and blog post 29 October 2024 Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London and TfL Chair City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE cc: Transport Commissioner; Deputy Mayor for Transport; Deputy Mayor for Social Justice and Communities, London Victims' Commissioner; Walking and Cycling Commissioner; TfL Board Secretariat; TfL SSHR Panel Secretariat; London Assembly Transport Committee Members; Tom Kearney (@comadad) Dear Mr. Mayor, With the support of Unite the Union, at 1100 on Tuesday, 5 November I will be leading London Bus Drivers in a march from Unite the Union's Regional London Office in Islington down to TfL Headquarters on Blackfriars. When we arrive at Palestra House, we will demonstrate to hold you and TfL to account for the...

By Email and Blogpost Elly Baker, Chair London Assembly Transport Committee City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE 23 September 2024 cc: London Assembly Transport Committee, Members and Staff Good Morning Elly Baker, I received the attached letter from you as Transport Committee Chair "responding to your email from 26 June 2024” on 19 July via a Committee Staffer. As you know, my 26 June email to you and the Committee simply contained a link to an Open Letter from former TfL Bus Driver Lorraine Robertson: acting on Lorraine's express instructions, I was pleased to post her letter on my blog and email the link to you and the Committee on 26 June. Although I intend to respond publicly to your 19 July letter to me in due...

Elly Baker, Chair London Assembly Transport Committee City Hall Kamal Chunchie Way London E16 1ZE cc: London Assembly Transport Committee, Members and Staff Dear Elly Baker, RE: Open Letter - Assisting the Inevitable Independent Inquiry about the Safety of the London Contracted 'Bus Market’ Model Congratulations on your re-election to the London Assembly and your selection to serve as Chair of the Transport Committee. You may recall that we had a chance to meet on 14 December 2021 when I gave evidence as a veteran TfL Bus Driver for the Transport Committee’s Investigation of the Mayor’s Vision Zero Programme. While you're busy considering your Committee's plan-of-work for the coming four years, I'd like to call your attention to...

I am grateful for the opportunity to once again address the RMT's Bus Worker National Industrial Organising Conference. I congratulate its organisers and RMT Union on celebrating this important conference's 81st year. Since this is the third National Conference in which I've been honoured to share my transport research with members since 2018, I'd like to follow up with you all on a resolution that was put forward last year by the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Branch and passed by members which called upon "the House of Commons Transport Committee to launch an Independent Inquiry of the Systemic Safety Problems associated with Transport for London’s ‘Contracted Bus Market’ Model.” What progress has the union made on putting this...

via Email and Blog Post From: kevin mustafa Subject: Wake up BBC! TfL's still putting "Miles" ahead of "Lives"! An Open Letter to Tom Edwards, BBC Transport Correspondent Date: 24 January 2024 at 11:24:31 GMT To: tom edwards Tom Edwards, Transport Correspondent BBC London News BBC Broadcasting House Portland Place London W1A 1AA Dear Tom Edwards, By way of introduction, I am the London Bus Driver you interviewed anonymously in January 2021 about the high death rate of TfL Bus Drivers from Covid-19 (“Bus Drivers say they feel “miles” being put ahead of “lives”). I studied your report from 21 January 2024 ("Passengers frustrated by bus that does not stop”) about your BBC Colleague Paul Moss's unsatisfactory experiences with Route...

By email and blogpost Mr. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester Greater Manchester Combined Authority Tootal Buildings 56 Oxford Street Manchester M1 6EU E: [email protected] cc: Stephen Rhodes, Director of Bus, [email protected]; Martin Shier, Bus Network Performance Manager, [email protected]; Tom Kearney #LondonBusWatch, [email protected] 26 October 2023 Dear Mayor Burnham, RE: When will Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) publish Bus Safety Performance Data? As a veteran Bus Driver and Vice Secretary of RMT’s Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Branch, I applaud your success in making Greater Manchester the first public bus operation to be brought under local council control using...

At a meeting of the London Assembly Transport Committee on 27 September 2023, Keith Prince AM asked TfL to 'come clean' about what decisions it took about a Safety Audit that TfL was finalising at the time Sandilands occurred to be (a) cancelled (b) kept from the RAIB Investigation and (c) removed from the public record. Here is my annotated informal transcript of Keith Prince's statement (a formal record of which will no doubt be published on the London Assembly site in due course)— "From evidence TfL has provided through numerous Mayor’s Questions and FOIs, when the Sandilands Tragedy occurred on 9 November 2019, these facts are known— TfL was putting the final touches on Internal Audit 16767 ("Trams Management of Operational...

"Transport for London leads the way on bus safety" exclaimed the headline of an Opinion piece penned by Tom Cunnington, TfL's Director of Bus Business Development that recently appeared in the news site and publication Route One ("Number One for Coach, Bus & Minibus"). While Tom Cunnington's PR placement highlighted all of TfL's good intentions surrounding its two decades-long 'roll-out' of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) to its contracted Bus Fleet, when you think about, the TfL executive merely parrots the words TfL has been using for many years while conveniently forgetting that New York City did lots of the same stuff TfL claim as “a first” twenty-odd years ago. But let's not get bogged down in the details, there’s plenty of...

From: Members Correspondence <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2023 1:01:52 PM To: Members Correspondence <[email protected]> Subject: Update from Transport for London Good afternoon I’m writing to let you know that the sentencing hearing of TfL and Tram Operations Limited (TOL) by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) concluded today in connection with the 2016 Sandilands tragedy. The ORR prosecuted TfL and TOL for an offence under the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974. TfL and TOL pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. TfL and TOL were ordered to pay fines. TfL Commissioner, Andy Lord, Lilli Matson, Chief Safety Health and Environment Officer, Glynn Barton, Chief Operating...