First Catch Your Bus!

We’ve been looking for Eco-busses to go with our eco town for several months now.  You would think that it would be quite easy to buy or hire a bus but when you ring the manufacturers you get a rather luke-warm response.  Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions?

Anyway finally we have found an operator and a company who seem interested.  Yesterday we went to Dennis busses in Guildford with Countryliner and were treated to a tour around the works and the gen on all their busses.

We are looking at a very new model which uses 25% less diesel than normal models, the rest of the power being produced by electricity generated from brake power.  Andy Boulton, Dennis’s sales manager is a real enthusiast and let slip that he owned quite a number of busses himself!

We fell in love with some of their classic range, especially a beautiful little 22 seater from the 20’s complete with moquette upholstery and etched glass lights. 

We also heard about  Plymouth Park and Ride, which has the most luxurious busses – the Enviro 400’s (not as green as the ones we are considering) but it’s the interior that interested us.  Leather upholstery and in seat audio!  This definitely means I’ll be off the

Plymouth some time soon to check them out.  By all accounts the service, which runs every 7 minutes from  6.30am to  8.30pm has been a phenomenal success.

What’s interesting about both the classic bus and the Plymouth bus is that someone had spent time thinking about the interior.  A lot of work goes into the exterior – modern busses have to have a smile!  And the operators are of course interested in the engine and the drive.  Pru Leith once told me that when you design a restaurant it’s the table arrangement, the plate and what’s on it that is the most important to diners.  I suspect that for bus passengers it’s the seat (and possibly the view) that is most important – yet how often have you sat on an uncomfortable seat – with a view of a blank plasticy wall in front of you. And how often have you had to suffer the inconvenience of looking inwards or backwards – both uncomfortable especially on windey roads? 

Of course the reason that bus interiors are so clunkey these days is that they have lowered the floor in order to get disabled access.  The lovely little 22 seater from the 20’s had a completely flat floor – but of course you had to climb up two or three steps to get into it.

 

Thanks to Brian Georg's Flickr site for these images.