Another news
update - bus companies are purchasing new buses for their services:
From Route One
£4m
in 18 new buses for Stagecoach
Newcastle
Stagecoach North East has continued its
investment with an 18 brand new ADL Enviro200 MMC now in service in
Newcastle on routes 30 and 31.
They follow 24 new buses for the region in September and forms part of a wider
programme of investment, including the launch of its smartphone app.
Over the past five years, Stagecoach North
East has invested heavily with 240 new
vehicles, worth £37m.
The buses are based at Slatyford depot,
pictured with Operations Manager Malcolm Bell.
From Bus and Coach Buyer
Stagecoach South has invested £4.5m in its Gold route 1 from
Aldershot to Farnborough and Camberley. 18
ADL Enviro400s have been introduced, featuring E-Leather seating, free Wi-Fi and USB charge points. They also have
a new look lighter interior designed to create an improved ambience to further
improve the travelling experience. Route 1 operates every ten minutes Monday to
Saturday daytimes and every 15 minutes
most of the day on Sundays.
MD for Stagecoach South, Edward Hodgson,
said, ‘We continue to significantly invest in our fleet to improve our service
and customer experience. These “next generation” buses will enhance
connectivity, comfort and sustainability for customers, signifying our solid
commitment to delivering an unbeatable, eco-friendly travel experience. The
Gold route 1 maintains important links across the district and with the
additional in-travel benefits and more seating capacity, we hope to tempt even
more people to try the service.’
From Route One
A new livery is matched by a new campaign of
‘Coastliner Country’ promotion for the buses, bursting with innovative and
customer-friendly features.
The buses include several firsts including wireless phone charging and ‘power
zones’ set around tables upstairs,
Transdev’s and ‘countdown to departure’
destination displays and ‘tech benches’ downstairs.
Each bus also carries specially designed
illustrations promoting some of the destinations, designed to boost to
Yorkshire’s tourism economy.
Alex Hornby, CEO says: “Every aspect of the
design is inspired by feedback from our customers. We examined every detail of
the journey from the moment a passenger steps on board to the end of their journey
with us.”
Replacing older Wright Geminis, the buses
are longer offering more passenger space, yet 616kg lighter.
They have leather trimmed coach seats, spaced-out rear seats,
‘tech benches’ with space to rest tablets, phones and laptops with USB points, free 4G Wi-Fi, USB points
at every seat, tinted double-glazed
windows, glazed staircase and full-length upper deck ‘skylight’ roof
panels.
Outside destination screens have Transdev’s
pioneering ‘time to departure’ countdown at major calling points on the route.
Inside are scrolling interior screens
and next stop audible announcements,
along with wood-effect flooring, LED lighting including under seats and
on the stairs plus three compact luggage areas on the lower deck. There are
also four seats around tables upstairs.
Based at Transdev’s Malton depot, the buses
and will enter service over the coming weeks.
Adds Mr Honby: “These amazing and pioneering
new buses are amongst the very best on the roads anywhere in Yorkshire and
beyond.
“Their introduction marks a new era for bus
travel across Yorkshire, bringing luxury travel to this popular and
high-profile service.”
I can’t imagine
London Buses doing the same thing, although in a similar fashion, we have the USB charging ports and a graphical interior screen on the BYD D9UR Enviro200 MMC electric buses.
Now on to
the independent bus companies which have announced their new bus orders:
From Bus and Coach Buyer
Operations Manager for Perryman’s Buses,
Claire Lark, said, ‘We are delighted to launch four new vehicles on service
253. We are proud to serve the route and thought the choir would be the perfect
way to celebrate this investment plus thank our customers for choosing to
travel on the service. We would also like to say a big thank you to Karen and
all the singers for providing such a joyous performance. There has been a
marked increase in the volume of people using the service, which is great news.
To meet this growing demand, and to ensure we maintain a reliable and frequent
service, we have made some alterations to the route.’
From Alexander
Dennis
All five
vehicles are Euro6 models and will operate on corporate contracts, private hires and nationwide ground transport
services.
Kieran Swindells, Managing Director of the
Manchester based company, commented: “We pride ourselves in vehicles that have
the latest safety, comfort and low
emission features and in that respect all five of our new purchases fit the
bill perfectly.
“The Leopard-Volvo B8 I-shift combination
has a proven track record and the 12.8m model gives us 72 seats, which is ideal
for a wide range of coach services. The addition of a stylish look, all-round
CCTV, Wi-Fi and a luxury finish provides the perfect package.
“The Enviro400
is a pace-setter too and at 11.5m will enable us to carry up to 86 passengers. There is growing demand for vehicles
that blend high capacity and comfort and
our two new Enviro400s will enable us to exploit these niche opportunities. As with all of our vehicles both
of the double decks are finished to
a high specification with 10-camera
CCTV, V400 recorders, CD-Radio and PA systems on both decks, seat belts and
high-back Practico seats.”
From Alexander Dennis
Like the two previous Enviro200s the new additions are 39-seat, 10.8m models
and will operate on the busy Route 41 between Lanark and Hamilton.
They join the fast-growing business of
husband and wife team Martin and Jennifer Bell, who now have a fleet of 60 vehicles supporting bus
services and school operations across Lanark, Carluke, Motherwell, Wishaw,
Shotts and Hamilton.
Martin Bell, Managing Director of JMB
Travel, commented: “The Enviro200s we introduced earlier this year have been a
huge success, so when we made some alterations to Route 41 services recently we
decided to add another two similar buses.
“Apart from being a modern, stylish vehicle
that supports the image we project as a business, the manoeuvrability, fuel
efficiency and over-all performance of the Enviro200 is second to none. It is
also popular with both drivers and passengers and is superbly supported by
ADL’s aftermarket team”.
JMB’s latest Enviro200s are powered by
Cummins 4.5 litre ISBe four-cylinder, 160PS turbocharged and intercooled diesel
engines, coupled with Allison S2100, five-speed automatic transmissions.
I’d like to
point out that bus companies in London always have to make new bus orders after
winning a new route contract. London Bus
routes are regulated by TfL under a competitive tender regime and this is the
reason why London always get the new bus purchases.
Lastly, an
update from LOTS:
1) In the past week, several items from
Go-Ahead London: A few more EHs have
gone into service at Putney, joining WHVs;
several EDs have been stood down at New Cross in favour of several more
refurbished (and upseated) MEC class Citaros on route 108, while one of the two
Irizar electrics (EI 1) is often being used in the peaks on NX177 on the
108; the former ETB VWLs are now down to
a mere handful, mostly used on route
180; SOEs have been spread out a little bit more with a few to River Road
for school
routes 646/648 once it was found that Citaros were too long for the routes.
2) The StreetLites due for Metrobus at
Crawley have started to arrive, 6102/3/4 in Fastway livery for route 100 and 6105-17
for Crawley town routes 2, 4 and 5 - all are 10.8im B41F versions. Many of Abellio Surrey’s operations are now
in their last two weeks of operation as detailed inTLB628. On 31st December, there will be four ‘new’
operators to local bus work into Kingston - Cardinal, Falcon, Hallmark and
Stagecoach South. Hallmark are due a
batch of Scania OmniLink buses in a mainly red livery transferred from their
parent (Rotala) operation in Bristol.
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