New buses from £10m fleet upgrade take to the roads

ALAN RODEN
TRANSPORT REPORTER


LOTHIAN Buses is rolling out 60 new vehicles as part of a £10 million upgrade of its fleet.

The first vehicle, launched by council leader Donald Anderson, will serve route 44 from Pencaitland to Balerno, and has been described as the company's most comfortable bus. It is also specially designed to help people with mobility difficulties.

The majority of the new vehicles will replace the ageing maroon and white buses in Lothian Buses' 600-strong fleet and they will be fitted with modern CCTV systems in a bid to crack down on attacks and vandalism.

The remaining buses are expected to be delivered from a factory in Northern Ireland in small batches, and should all be on the road by December.

Lothian Buses said 50 of the new double-deckers will serve key routes in the city and would most likely include the number 3 route from Mayfield to Wester Hailes, while five vehicles will run on the airport shuttle service.

Another five single-deckers will be provided on the number 22 route, increasing the frequency from every five minutes to four minutes. These buses, which run between Ocean Terminal and the Gyle Centre, will use the controversial Fastlink guided busway.

Pilmar Smith, chairman of Lothian Buses, said: "These new state-of-the-art buses will further help us achieve our aim of offering public transport users the best quality buses available.

"Passengers can easily identify their bus and coupled with the bright airy interior we hope they will find the bright, airy interior very comfortable."

Lothian Buses, which is majority-owned by the city council, has seen a 25 per cent increase in passenger numbers since 1998, and currently carries 310,000 passengers every weekday.

All the new buses feature low-floor easy access, low emission engines and an entrance ramp for wheelchair and buggy users.

Councillor Anderson said: "Edinburgh residents make the highest number of bus passenger journeys in the whole of Scotland and over 80 per cent of city residents use Lothian Buses.

"Investment like this will continue to attract people to use public transport as well as the modern bus features such as easy access low-floors and CCTV.

"These new buses go hand in glove with the council's own transport improvements, including two new park-and-ride sites at Ingliston and Hermiston and extensions to the BusTracker real-time information system."

Councillor Maureen Child, whose ward includes the route of the new number 44 bus, said: "Bus users in Duddingston, Milton and Brunstane welcome these new buses. The low floors are particularly good for parents with baby buggies and those of us who are not so fit."

The new vehicles are being built by Wrightbus, based in Ballymena, Northern Ireland.

Why waste  £10 million on only 60 new vehicles which can only operate all over the Lothian region.

When, for a mere £190 million more, they could have had a fixed, inflexible tram line serving one route.

Well, every fourth or fifth stop on it, anyway.