Breakdown and recovery services for buses

Description

LBSL require a dedicated recovery service for use in the Central London area to remove predominantly broken down buses, however other vehicles may also be removed. The service will be provided between the hours of 7.00 and 19.00, Monday to Saturday, however there are occasions when the working day will be extended to cater for special events. During the hours of operation the vehicle will be stationed at Achilles Way, just north of Hyde Park Corner and will remain there unless tasked by the NMCC Network Duty Manager (NDM) to recover a vehicle at another location. LBSL require a dedicated recovery service for use in the Central London area to remove predominantly broken down buses, however other vehicles may also be removed. The service will be provided between the hours of 7.00 and 19.00, Monday to Saturday, however there are occasions when the working day will be extended to cater for special events. During the hours of operation the vehicle will be stationed at Achilles Way, just north of Hyde Park Corner, and will remain there unless tasked by the NMCC Network Duty Manager (NDM) to recover a vehicle at another location. Note: On most occasions the NDM will direct the service provider, although direction may come from anybody appointed by TfL. Usually just one recovery vehicle is required, however during events such as the Notting Hill Carnival a second vehicle will need to be on standby, this will be communicated by the Authority to the service provider prior to the requirement. The NMCC will be responsible for determining the potential level of disruption that a broken down vehicle is likely to cause and on that basis will communicate via mobile phone for the recovery service to be dispatched in order to recover the vehicle as soon as possible. This would be within 5 minutes of receiving the instruction. (Usually within 10 minutes of notification). The service is only provided to recover the bus to a ‘safe’ location (either a wider part of the carriageway or the nearest suitable bus stand), not to recover the bus to the home garage. This will ensure that the recovery vehicle is always within the dedicated operating area and minimise the times when the recovery vehicle is not available. The dedicated recovery service will mostly operate within the Congestion Charging area; however should a particular problem occur, where a broken down bus is causing serious disruption, the recovery vehicle may be sent to assist anywhere within Central London at the discretion of the NDM. There may also be occasions where very serious disruption is caused by another vehicle that has broken down. Where required, the dedicated recovery vehicle will be asked to assist other authorities and companies, (such as the Met Police), at the discretion of the NDM. If the offending vehicle can be recovered, then it will be moved to a nearby safe location. In all occasions and situations the instructions of the NDM and NMCC will take precedent. There is also a requirement to provide a general breakdown service to recover vehicles for London Dial a Ride fleet and for an ‘As Required’ call out service to the London Trams Network on a 24/7 basis for removing road vehicles up to 3.5 tn stuck on ballasted tram tracks at road junctions and also other TfL fleet consisting of cars, vans and HGV vehicles.