Stagecoach
has announced a massive order of new buses for their operations which has cost
them £97 million.
From
the Stagecoach Press Release
- Around 480 new buses and coaches ordered, many equipped with wi-fi
- £1billion orders for more than 6,500 new vehicles placed over past 10 years
- Latest intake of vehicles all meet latest Euro 6 emissions standards
- New orders help Stagecoach deliver a fully accessible fleet
- Stagecoach Group today (11 April 2016) announced new vehicle orders worth £97million.
A new fleet of around 480 vehicles, many equipped with free wifi, will be introduced in the coming 2016-17 financial year as the company continues its policy of reinvesting profits in improving services for customers.
The latest
announcement takes Stagecoach Group's total orders of new buses and coaches to
more than £1billion since 2006/07,
delivering more than 6,500 new vehicles
for passengers.
This year’s orders
mean around £82million of new buses
and coaches will be introduced in Stagecoach's regional networks in England,
Scotland and Wales. There is also a £10million
order for new buses for London and around £4.5million will be spent on coaches for the Group’s megabus.com
operations.
Most of the new
vehicles are set to be built in the UK, helping to support hundreds of British
manufacturing jobs and smaller businesses in the supply chain who produce key
components from drivers' seats and toilets to wheelchair lifts and destination
displays*. All of the new vehicles meet Euro 6 emissions standards.
All of the new
vehicles will be fitted with CCTV while most will also have wi-fi installed,
giving customers free internet access during their journeys.
The latest orders
follow an annual competitive tendering process and the first of the new
vehicles will be delivered from Spring 2016.
Highlights of the
latest investment are almost 280 low-floor double-decker vehicles to go into
service across the UK, ensuring that Stagecoach work has met its requirements
under the UK Disability Discrimination Act deadline for double deck vehicles.
The company previously met the DDA deadline for smaller vehicles.
There are also almost
100 single decker and midi vehicles and 14 coaches for UK Bus express service,
as well as 13 new coaches for megabus.com and 36 minibuses for local regional
companies. Around 65 of the new buses will be used for Stagecoach Gold services.
In London, Stagecoach
has placed a £10million order for more than 50 new vehicles.
Stagecoach has also
made a multi-million pound investment in digital technology and recently
launched a transformational new, fully mobile, UK Bus website which lets
customers check live running times for their services and buy travel from their
smartphone.
Along with the
country's other major bus operators, Stagecoach has also invested heavily to
complete the introduction of smart multi-operator bus ticketing in all nine of
England's smart city regions with support from local transport authorities.
Britain’s
five main bus operators
– including Stagecoach – are also working together to produce a business case
for the introduction of contactless
technology on every bus in Britain. The business case is expected to be
completed by late spring 2016 and the
scheme, funded predominantly by the private sector, could see new EMV contactless technology installed on
every one of the UK’s 32,000-plus buses outside London. It would offer cashless travel for those who want it and
capped pay-as-you-go-fares in all urban areas.
Stagecoach
was rated by customers as the best value major bus operator in the UK for the
third consecutive year in the most recent Bus Passenger Satisfaction survey
carried out by Transport Focus.
Stagecoach Group Chief
Executive Martin Griffiths said: “Everything we do is about making travel even
better for our customers. We are investing in state-of-the-art, cleaner, greener vehicles, digital technology and
smart ticketing to raise the bar and deliver an even higher standard of
service. These latest vehicle orders are an important part of our strategy to
encourage even more people to take the bus.
“Local bus services
are the backbone of the country’s transport networks. Stagecoach provides
millions of people every day with a greener way to access work, health,
education and leisure and we offer the best value bus fares in Britain.”
Details
of the new orders are as follows:
UK REGIONAL OPERATIONS
278 ADL MMC E400
double-deckers
71 ADL MMC E200 single-deckers
13 ADL MMC E200
midibuses
11 Volvo B11/R Plaxton Elite 6x2
2 Volvo B11/R Plaxton
Elite 4x2
1 Volvo B11/R Plaxton
Elite i
30 Mercedes Benz
Sprinter City 45 minibuses
6 Optare Solo SR
Slimline minibuses
MEGABUS.COM
OPERATIONS
7 Volvo B11/R Plaxton
Elite i
6 Van Hool Astromega
double-deckers
LONDON OPERATIONS
37
ADL MMC E400 Hybrid double-deckers
3 ADL MMC E400
double-deckers
13 ADL MMC E200 single
deckers
Yes,
£10 million is being spent on 53 new buses for London, 37 of these will be
diesel-electric hybrid's. It’s a shame that they didn't consider ordering the
competing iconic Enviro400H City.
Why
is the Stagecoach bus fleet mostly manufactured by Alexander Dennis (ADL)? I’ve
found out that Stagecoach founders Brian
Souter and his sister Ann Gloag
hold 55% of the shares in Alexander Dennis which I believe is the reason
Stagecoach gets good deals with them to provide new buses for their services.
I'd
like to add that the commuters believe that TFL buys new buses. In a sense
that's true as they negotiate with operators to order the new buses required as
part of the new contracts. TFL directly orders and owns buses such as the New
Routemaster bus and leases them to the operators; the operators have to pay £1 per New Routemaster bus per year as part of the contract.
TFL
hold reports of their purchases and contracts on their website as part of the
TFL transparency policy.
Here
are the pages which includes the documents in PDF and CSV (Spreadsheet) format.
These
documents are worth looking at for those that are interested.
The
New Routemaster design has evolved in to two bus types which are the Enviro400H City and the Volvo SRM. The Enviro400H City is
purchased by CT Plus for their route 26 contract whilst RATP-Dev ordered 6 of
the Volvo SRM’s for route 13 which will all appear later this year.
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Image attribution
By GeoffGlem - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44757078
Image attribution
By GeoffGlem - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44757078