Thames Clippers have announced that they will resume London’s river bus services starting from next week.
In a tweet earlier this week, they said the service would be making a welcome return from Monday 15th June.
New safety and social distancing measures are being introduced at piers and on board the vessels, as well as an enhanced cleaning regime.
At peak times pre-coronavirus, Thames Clippers carried 1.4 passengers per square metre. With the new social distancing measures in place, this is reduced to just 0.85 passengers per square metre. For context, ordinarily, there were 5-7 people per square metre on the London Underground and with its current social distancing measures, TfL has managed to reduce this to around 1.3 passengers per square metres.
Sean Collins, the co-founder and CEO of Thames Clippers said: “It is key that we can support London and its commuters with the ease of lockdown and return to work, by providing travel in a safe and comfortable way. My entire team has worked incredibly hard to deploy new safety measures and to ensure our passengers have a contact-free and enjoyable commuting experience.”
“The unique travel experience with Thames Clippers naturally provides good personal spacing and in addition we have reduced our passenger capacity to ensure even greater social distancing, which has allowed us to increase the number of bicycles we can carry on each boat, so those who want to cycle part of their journey can do so too.”
Passengers are being encouraged to pay using contactless when the service returns.
