A Guide to the Standard Routemaster Units system

The SRU system was introduced on the 1st March 2006 as a handy way to standardise and formalise the world of journalism's more esoteric units of measurement.

Here's where you will find the most frequently used everyday units for measuring length, surface area, volume, mass, and many more. Feel free to use these units of measurement in your essays, articles, academic papers or news reports!

Last update: September 2022

SRU Metric Imperial
Units of Length / Height
The Lady Gaga 1.5494 m 5 ft 1 in
The Blue Whale 30 m 98 ft
The St Paul's Cathedral 111.25 m 365 ft
The Blackpool Tower 158 m 518 ft
The Coastline of Mozambique 2470 km 1535 miles
Units of Area
The Postage Stamp

4.8 cm2

0.744 square inches
The Squash Court

62.4 m2

(9.75m x 6.4m)

671.668 square feet
The Football Pitch

7140 m2

(105m x 68m)

76,854 square feet
The Zanzibar 1554 km2 1020 square miles
Units of Volume
The Sugar Lump 1 cm3 0.061 cubic inches
The Mini 3.55 m3 125 cubic feet
The Builders' Skip 6 m3 212 cubic feet
The Blue Whale

150 m3

5297 cubic feet

The Swimming Pool

2,500 m3

2,500,000 litres

88,287 cubic feet

550,000 gallons

Units of Mass
The Kylie 42.6 kg 94 lbs
The Professional Football Team 898 kg 1980 lbs
The SUV (deprecated - use the Routemaster instead) 1814 kg 4000 lbs / 1.79 tons
The African Elephant 3500 kg 7700 lbs / 3.44 tons

The Routemaster

(a.k.a the Double Decker Bus)

7530 kg (unladen) 7 tons 7 cwt
The Blue Whale 180,000 kg 177 tons
The Blackpool Tower 2,627,497 kg 2586 tons
The Eiffel Tower
8,560,000 kg 8424 tons
Units of Power
The Corvette Engine 300 kW 400 bhp
The Jumbo Jet 140 MW 187743 bhp
The DeLorean 1.21 GW 1.623×106 hp
The Hoover Dam 2.074 GW 2.7813×106 hp
The Saturn V 190 GW 2.548×108 hp
Miscellaneous Units
The Banana Equivalent Dose 0.1 microsieverts -

Units are provided solely for the amusement of like-minded individuals. For entertainment purposes only. All errors and omissions excepted. Investments may go down as well as up. Your home is at risk if you do not keep up payments on it. May contain traces of nuts. And I would have got away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids.