Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast coming from a bus so good I don't want to get off.

Yes, this is the future of bus travel. I'm aboard the 63 bus just actually crossing over Blackfriars bridge you're here that it's very very

quiet and that's because it is an all-electric bus the first route in the capital that has that

characteristic of course there are hybrid buses but nothing quite like this.

I'm sitting on the top deck. I've got a fantastic view

including of my phone because can you believe there is a phone holder on here

which allows you for example if you were going to be

travelling all the way to Crystal Palace

on this bus and frankly who wouldn't want to you would be able to watch whatever you wanted to

you can even keep your phone charged because like a lot of long distance coaches but not like a lot of

buses I've been on there is a place to

charge your phone now this is very much an experimental bus route they have been

brought in to try to encourage more people back to public transport and they are also part of a

kind of long wrangle with the bus author with between Transport for London who runs the buses

and with the government which is, well, negotiating very, very stringent increase in finance for London.

Basically, since the pandemic, fair revenue in the capital has dropped off a cliff because not nearly so many people are commuting from the leafy suburbs of places like

Ryslip and Epping into central London.

Those season ticket sales have basically disappeared and as a result there is not the fair income coming through.

You can also, and I'm afraid I'm going to say it, blame Brexit

for deciding to exclude 300 million people from Europe

who are not able to come here.

I'm not saying all 300 million of them would come here

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