If you feel unable or unwilling to join in the debate caused by Sir Peter's words, that's fine by me, but I'll stick to facts too here and now, at least as I interpret them.
When the NB4L was being developed there was no mention of who would be the actual purchasers of the vehicles, only that TfL would guarantee a minimum number that would be required on contracts with this specification. As all London bus contracts (bar the handful of Routemasters on 'heritage' services) are worked by private operators who have to provide their own buses to TfL specification, it was a reasonable assumption that this state of affairs would prevail with the NB4L, as I am sure would have happened if the private operators (Stagecoach, Arriva and Go-Ahead, etc) had agreed to play ball. When it became clear they weren't interested in owning vehicles that would be a hugely-depreciating liability after London service, TfL had to rapidly introduce Plan B to save the Mayor's face = buy the buses themselves and pretend this had been the intention all along, thus incurring huge additional costs for TfL upfront.
As regards the hop on/off element of these buses, I was waiting to be challenged by someone. When Boris was doing all his proseletizing for the 'new Routemaster' it was all on the back of the open rear entrance/exit enabling passengers to hop on and off at will, just like in the days up to 2005.There would be the return of the reassuring presence of a conductor seven days a week, except in the evenings when the rear door would be kepr closed in between stops. When the 24 became the first route to be fully converted to the type, it was on this basis, except that from day one the 'conductors' were told to remain on the platform at all times and only allow entry and exit when they deemed safe to do so, for public safety reasons and also because of the increasing accident litigation. This became exacerbated very shortly afterwards when a serious injury occurred to a passenger and word went out that, despite what Johnson had promised, this was an unrealisable fantasy.
The second NB4L route had already been chosen (the 11) and duly went ahead, seven days a week, but shortly afterwards the 24 lost its weekend 'conductor' operation and the next route (the 9) was only M-F in conductor mode. Now we have the situation where route after route (the 390, 148, 453 and,shortly, the 8) have NO conductors and no open platform at all on any time of day or day of the week, so what has it all been about? As for passengers liking them, this is subjective and I quite like the look, particularly the curvaceous rear end, but a lot of people find them oppressive inside, particularly upstairs, with windows far too small and way too hot in the summer: with the two staircases and the wheelchair space the downstairs is lamentably lacking in seats and what they do have are bizarrely spaced. There are other threads on the buses section of this forum with plenty of comments along these lines.
It's hard to conclude the NB4L has been anything than one man's vanity project that will cost Londoners dear in future years when he is long gone to Uxbridge or pastures more tempting still.
