London Buses route 15

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15

Management
Operated by	East London
Garage	Barking and Bow
Vehicle	Dennis Trident 2/Alexander ALX400
Peak vehicle requirement	31
Route
Start	Blackwall
Via	Aldgate Cannon Street Aldwych Oxford Circus
End	Paddington
Length	9 miles (14 km)
Service
Level	Daily (5:30am until 1:30am)
Frequency	About every 7 minutes
Journey time	49-95 minutes
Night	Night Bus N15
Transport for London • Performance (PDF)

London Buses route 15 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The regular service on route 15 is currently contracted to East London and operated with modern double-decker buses. Heritage route 15 operates using traditional Routemaster buses over a shortened version of the regular route.

1 History
2 Current route
- 2.1 Route departing Blackwall
- 2.2 Route departing Paddington
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

The 15 is a particularly touristy route passing as it does several major attractions as it runs from one end of central London to the other. Not least the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, the 15 being the only route to serve these places apart from three more city-oriented routes, but not forgetting Oxford Street, St. Paul's, Trafalgar Square and so on.

Whilst the Mayor has been pursuing a policy of replacing Routemasters with modern low floor buses, he also made numerous references to intentions to keep a few on a "heritage tourist route". The 15 seemed to be the ideal candidate, so not a few eyebrows were raised when the route's conversion to one-person operation was announced. This also came as a particular disappointment to enthusiasts, as the 15 was host to quite a number of "unusual" Routemasters, and all were immaculately presented.

OPO conversion allowed the route's transfer to Bow garage, freeing up additional space at Upton Park for other routes previously run from Bow.

These days the 15 runs between Paddington and Blackwall Station. The latter is not much of a traffic objective, but terminating here means buses on route 15 can miss the severe congestion in the Canning Town area where the A13 crosses the Lee Valley.

The 15 has had a long association with route 23, although the 23 disappeared for a while. As well as running east to East Ham, and on to Dagenham via the Barking By-Pass, buses also ran west as far as Acton. The former is now covered by route 115 during the day, and the latter by routes 7 and 23.

[edit] Current route

On 26 February 2006, it was announced that this route would be extended to Paddington Basin (North Wharf Road). A provisional date has been set for March 2007.