Tuesday 9th September 2025 As mentioned in recent blogs, last week saw a number of changes to bus routes in Powys, not least significant surgery to the TrawsCymru network through the county. Whereas TrawsCymru had been expanding across mid and south east Wales over the last six years by swallowing up traditionally run local bus... Continue Reading →
Thursday 7th August 2025 Photo credit: Emma West A much welcome upgrade to the bus route between Reading and Oxford launched this week. Not only has the timetable for Thames Travel’s River Rapids branded route X40 been improved from half hourly to every 20 minutes with new late night journeys added on Fridays and Saturdays... Continue Reading →
Thursday 5th June 2025 It’s good to see the promised new battery-electric buses are now being introduced on the Kent Thameside Fastrack network. Readers will recall Go-Ahead took over the contract for this high profile operation in the Dartford-Bluewater-Ebbsfleet-Gravesend area last November and have been using mainly London cast offs for the last few months.... Continue Reading →
Saturday 23rd November 2024 Passengers on TfL’s route 358 between Crystal Palace and Orpington finally got to travel on the much anticipated Irizar electric ‘tram style’ buses on Wednesday when seven of the 17 vehicles allocated to the route, operated by Go-Ahead London from its Green Street Green bus garage, hit the road. Readers may... Continue Reading →
Thursday 11th April 2024 I attended a fascinating and timely visit organised by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport to Metrobus’s Crawley bus garage on Tuesday. It was to hear more about the challenges the Company is facing with its pioneering introduction of liquid "green" hydrogen including commissioning what is destined to be “the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st March 2024 Bus passengers travelling along the coast road between Brighton and Eastbourne are enjoying superb comfort from the brand new buses now entering service with Brighton & Hove Bus Company as part of a substantial order of 44 ADL Enviro400 MMC buses. 38 of the new intake are destined for the hugely... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th February 2024 Dates into service for new trains along with openings of new stations are notorious for seriously slipping beyond original expectations. Deliveries of new buses also have a reputation for delays which can sometimes impact new bus route introductions, especially if they’re supposed to be operated with electric powered vehicles with associated... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th February 2024 Reading Buses is no stranger to investing in smart new buses and following the introduction of seven pristine Enviro400s on the newly branded Windsor Express routes 702 (London Line) and 703 (Flightline) last year, it’s now the turn of Lion branded routes 4/X4 between Reading and Bracknell to receive an upgrade.... Continue Reading →
Saturday 14th October 2023 Poole based Morebus recently put 28 brand new ADL Enviro400 MMC buses into service on its busy high frequency route m1 which crosses the conurbation linking Poole, Bournemouth and the Royal Bournemouth Hospital as well as its 15 minutely route 5/5A between Bournemouth and Kinson. The company kindly invited me along... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Go-Ahead Group's Metrobus is the latest bus company to roll out a small fleet of hydrogen powered buses. It follows First Bus in Aberdeen, National Express West Midlands, Metroline in London and Translink in Belfast introducing small fleets of Wrightbus StreetDeck Hydroliner double decks and Merseytravel introducing ADL buses powered by... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Last Friday Rob Jones, managing director, Stagecoach in Cumbria and North Lancashire (that name is going to need an update now Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness councils have replaced Cumbria) kindly invited me to the launch of the company’s circa £3 million investment in nine smart new Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC... Continue Reading →
Saturday 4th March 2023 Another new bus route began on Thursday. It’s been given route number 001. Operated by First Bus on a 15 minute headway it takes just under a quarter of an hour to complete its circular loop around the swish business park in Didcot known as Milton Park operating for almost 12... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 6th December 2022 Safeguard Coaches managing director, Andrew Halliday contacted me last week suggesting I might like to sample the company's two recently delivered new Volvo B8R/MCV Evoras (spelt eVoRas - just to be different I guess). It sounded a good idea and one not to miss out on so yesterday morning found me... Continue Reading →
Thursday 10th February 2022 Passengers using Edinburgh’s trams to travel into the city centre face a few weeks of inconvenience from today with the closure of track between West End through Princes Street and St Andrew Square to the (now, former) terminus at York Place. It’s so that the track can be joined up at... Continue Reading →
Saturday 5th February 2022 Cardiff Bus publicly launched its fleet of 36 Yutong E12 EV buses in the middle of last month. They looked very smart and inviting from the photographs on social media so I popped over to the Welsh capital on Wednesday to give them the once over. They’re being used on three... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th January 2022 It’s nice to see London’s regulated buses at long last catching up with standards of comfort, decor and facilities that have been commonplace on new buses in the deregulated rest of the country for many years. Yet, this being London, it’s not just a straightforward upgrade to bus specifications. Bish bosh... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th May 2021 No sooner had I posted yesterday morning's blog about Aberdeen's hydrogen buses came news TfL and its contractor Metroline had chalked up a ‘world second’ by introducing one of their similar fleet of Wrightbus built hydrogen double deck buses into service in London for the first time yesterday. TfL have long... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 12th May 2021 After visiting Kintore Station on Monday I stopped off in Aberdeen to catch up on the latest development in the city’s high profile commitment to hydrogen powered vehicles. In 2015 First Bus and Stagecoach introduced ten Van Hool A330H hydrogen powered single deck buses between them as phase one of an... Continue Reading →
Saturday 19th December 2020 How appropriate that aside from my usual "Annual Review, Quiz and Awards of the year" which will post tomorrow, for the penultimate blog of 2020 I was able to try out Transdev Blazefield's smart new "Sky Class" buses today. What a positive end to a rather dismal year. Photos and promotional... Continue Reading →
Monday 7th December 2020 The order was announced in a fanfare of publicity on 4th March: "Europe's most frequent coach service set to get even better with 34 new coaches this summer.... the largest single order of coaches in the history of Stagecoach .... the latest technology designed to enhance the customer experience". Their deferment... Continue Reading →
Sunday 6th December 2020 I always know something serious is happening when a new initiative is upgraded from being described as "ground breaking" in the media release to "game changer" . Mind you, the much derided NHS Covid app was once so described, but that must be the exception to the rule. Go North East... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 First Bus in Leeds have just introduced a fleet of nine electric buses manufactured by the Chinese company, Yutong. They’re becoming a popular purchase choice with a fleet of 14 recently introduced in Newport, South Wales and a batch arriving for Go North East imminently. With Lockdown 2.0 fast approaching and... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20 August 2020 The last time I took a ride on East Yorkshire's open top bus service along Scarborough's seafront was in May last year, just before the lovely bright new Beachcomber brand was rolled out, so it was nice to make a return visit on Tuesday and see the Best Impressions designed makeover... Continue Reading →
Monday 2nd March 2020 Stagecoach rolled out its high profile £16.5 million investment in 32 BYD ADL Enviro400EV double deckers yesterday so I popped up to Manchester today to take a look. They're zero emission electric buses and in a nice piece of purchase symmetry the Government's Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme contributed a handy £6.9... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th February 2020 My travels today once again involved sampling more impressive shiny new buses from First Bus but this time with a few unexpected experiences along the way. Read on for a mixed bag report. First Essex introduced seven new double decks to their X30 Southend to Stansted Airport route yesterday together with... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 19th February 2020 I took a ride on the Cambridge Busway earlier today to look at Stagecoach's latest vehicles purchased specifically to increase capacity to meet growing demand on the popular link from St Ives to the city as well as other destinations as far away as Peterborough and Royston. Eighteen vehicles costing £5... Continue Reading →
Monday 17th February 2020 It's 'take a ride on another high profile brand new fleet of buses' time again. Another £5.3 million spend. Another whole route conversion. This time nineteen buses for First Eastern Counties' excel branded Norwich to Peterborough 84 mile route. And all this before Johnson's promise last week of "4,000 beautiful, bouncing,... Continue Reading →
Sunday 9th Febraury 2020 It seems not a week goes by at the moment without new 'state-of-the-art' vehicles being introduced to bus fleets around the Country; usually promoted with understandable emphasis on their green credentials at a time of increasing climate change concerns. None more so than in Basingstoke where Stagecoach South introduced a fleet... Continue Reading →
Friday 24th January 2020 I don't often attend new bus PR razzmatazz type launches these days, much preferring to take a ride when they're actually in service earning their keep with passengers travelling on board. But I made an exception this morning having seen First Portsmouth's social media promoting their sparkly new buses for the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 21st January 2020 It's interesting to compare three recent launches of buses and brands in the last couple of weeks. Highest profile was Blackburn Bus Company's launch last weekend of 13 new ADL Enviro200 buses for route 1 running between Blackburn, Darwen and Bolton. This route runs at an impressive 7/8 minute frequency between... Continue Reading →
Thursday 7th November 2019 Seeing the photos online I was already hugely impressed by the sheer presence of the magnificent looking Alexander Dennis built Plaxton Panorama tri-axle coaches launched by Scottish Citylink on their AIR branded service between Glasgow and Edinburgh Airport towards the end of last month. Costing a cool £400,000, each of the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 19th March 2019 Lothian Buses have just started operating their brand new 100 seat tri-axle buses in service on city routes 11 and 16. I thought I'd take a ride. They're Alexander Dennis Enviro400XLB bodies on a Volvo chassis (according to the swanky promotional video which plays out every five minutes or so on... Continue Reading →
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