The double-decker bus hasn’t quite had the same effect here as it has in London. For while the world famous two-storey high buses in England have become a iconic symbol of British identity, it’s been nothing more than an irritant to the Danish public.
“It’s not been a great experience,” Torsten Rasmussen, bus company Movia's area manager for Greater Copenhagen, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “We’d hoped that the introduction of the double-decker in the capital would help us stand out of the crowd. Instead, it’s just created a state of inflexibility.”
For while the red bus may have worked wonders for London’s heavy traffic congestion, Movia’s yellow versions haven't caught on with Copenhagen commuters.
“People just don’t use the upper level,” Rasmussen said. “So instead of using the additional seating upstairs, commuters simply cram themselves onto the first floor, where there are hardly any seats to begin with.”
On top of that, Movia's seventeen double-decker buses that are currently on the roads are too big to fit under some of the city's bridges.
“This means that double-decker buses have to be rerouted, making them less advantageous than the single-deck buses that are already in place,” Rasmussen said.
Movia has as a result decided to retire the double-deckers and replace them with a new prototype that stretches to almost 14 metres, which is two metres longer than the norm.
But Rasmussen refused to accept that the failed endeavour has been a complete fiasco.
“I’m sure that the commuters coming in from suburban areas like Gladsaxe enjoyed sitting on the second floor,” he told Jyllands-Posten. “And whenever the bus stopped outside of a kindergarten, the kids would rush up the stairs to the top floor. But, all said, it’s better that we revert back to using single-deck buses in the future.”
