Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

[gilesbus1]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

(05/03/2019 20:22)Brickmill Wrote:  It has replaced 12054 which I assume will be written off, with 12258 being a permanent replacement. As regards the CleanAir directive, I don't suppose any knows what was said in Friday's meeting. Typical Media report the meeting will happen but don't report the outcome. Specifically, what was said about paying for the retrofitting. One reply above said GMCA would ask Central Government to pay the full cost, but I got the impression "ask" was the polite version....

Retrofitting of some fleet buses would be the most cost effective option though, no matter who pays for it, rather than either paying the £100 fine to enter or use within Greater Manchester or else to replace vast amounts of fleet, obviously to renew large proportions of fleet just isn't economically practical, and the smaller the fleet, the worse the outcome.

The other point should be though that larger operators if they find it a problem have only them selves to blame for slashing fleet replacement to nothing or next to nothing, in fact the 4 recent new buses delivered to Diamond North West are the first new buses for a Greater Manchester operation for some time.

An operation like Stagecoach Manchester should be buying at least 40 buses a year to maintain a life span of circa 16 years, for the last two years the number of vehicles purchased has totalled 5, hardly sufficient to make any dent, at FirstGroup the situation is worse with a need to buy about 20-30 a year, over the last two years nothing has been bought, then all that were bought in the two years before for solely for the Vantage Service and were bought with TfGM finance/Support, hardly a satisfactory situation for a major operator.

Arriva haven't bought any new buses for use in Manchester since Hybrid Deckers, that they then moved away to Merseyside a couple of years later, some 8 years ago or so, they probably need to invest in about 7 new buses a year for Greater Manchester work, although their Manchester opp's have been being thinned back for some years.

Presume one way forward would be for more Government Grants to be awarded if they are setting the agenda on Pollution, in Greater Manchester, in twelve months time, to replace a further tranche of vehicles, these should go onto other routes instead of the two concentrations this time in South Manchester and Leigh.