Capital invests more
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LONDON Transport has submitted its planned capital expenditure programme for the years 1978-88 to the Greater London Council. Capital expenditure in the region of £785 million is planned to improve the entire transport system. The plan allows £150m for new buses, £59m for new bus garages and £12m for bus stations and shelters. A £5m computerised bus control system is also planned.
The balance of the planned capital expenditure is to be used for improvements to the Tube system, including some new trains, automatic fare collection, station modernisation, development work on driverless trains and new control systems. The 10-year capital programme has been planned at November 1977 prices and will be reviewed every year. All individual projects also have to be individually approved by the GLC at the appropriate time. £156m would allow LT to purchase approximately 4,000 buses in the next 10 years. LT at present operates over 2,300 Routemaster buses which are between 10 and 20 yehrs old, as well as a number of considerably older RT and RF buses.
Plans to replace seven -yearold AEC Swifts have already been announced.
In addition, performance from the DMS-type Fleetline, of which LT has over 2,000 from seven years old and which are still being delivered, has never been completely satisfactory, and it is expected that these will eventually be replaced with new generation buses.