Lothian thinks big with 100-seat tri-axles
Alexander Dennis is building buses for Edinburgh again. January will see the first of 42 new high capacity double deckers enter service in the city The 13.4-metre vehicles are capable of carrying up to 134 passengers A lone piper emerged from behind the curtain on the shop floor at Alexander Dennis’s factory in...
Gold performance from Team Public Transport
As the London 2012 Games draw to a close there is pride in the transport sector at a record-breaking performance and anticipation of legacy benefits As the Olympics draw to a close, the Games are being presented as a huge success, not just for the British competitors but for the transport industry. “All the talk...
Souter ready for Mega expansion into Europe
At 09:30 on Monday, April 16, two Megabus-branded coaches departed London’s Victoria Coach station, one bound for Paris and the other heading to Amsterdam, via Brussels. They were the first Stagecoach services in mainland Europe for over a decade. Perth-based Stagecoach previously owned large subsidiaries in Sweden and Portugal but withdrew from both markets in...
Exporting British expertise to Germany
In his first interview since the launch of his new venture, Marwyn European Transport, David Leeder tells Robert Jack about his plans to expand in the German bus market. A growing proportion of the UK passenger transport operations are foreign-owned. It’s part of a global trend. Passenger transport operations are being consolidated by large multi-national...
‘Lady Boris’ has made buses sexy
Phil Tonks went in search of the New Bus for London, and offers a passengers’ perspective on the new vehicle in service. It’s a sunny March morning as I loiter around Victoria bus station in central London. A bus station supervisor ticks off a young man for riding his bike on the pavement. Throngs of...
Transport has lost a true champion
Robert Jack reflects on the 40-year career of Peter Huntley, a free thinker who brought real passion to passenger transport. Peter Huntley was full of plans and optimism for the future when died on Sunday, February 19, aged 55, after falling from High Street Fell in the Lake District. We’ll never know what his next...
The automation of information
Is it possible to slash the cost of providing timetable displays and improve quality? Thanks to new technology, the answer is yes. Let’s face it, the provision of bus service information at the UK’s 450,000 bus stops is generally quite poor. There are exceptions – London is the obvious one – but there are too...
A brighter outlook for bus rapid transit?
The immediate future for BRT projects in the UK looks bright, but Aaron Nelson of Bircham Dyson Bell warns that the long term forecast remains, as ever, difficult to predict. Bus Rapid Transport has had a good autumn 2011 but the outlook for 2012 may be stormier. First, the good news: in recent weeks, the...
Arriva’s m-ticketing revolution arrives
The ground-breaking m-ticketing system introduced by Arriva UK Bus won the Innovation Award at last week’s UK Bus Awards. Smartcard technology is now being rolled out quickly across the UK bus industry as operators seek to bring their ticket retailing options into the 21st century. Arriva is no exception – the group has invested in...
Tube’s best line is getting better
Three-way partnership between Alstom, Tube Lines and LU is continuing to deliver improvements. Back in 2009, the triumvirate of partnership of Alstom, Tube Lines and London Underground collected four industry awards for their joint success in improving services on the Northern Line. Once dubbed “the Misery Line” by Londoners, it’s now the Tube network’s best-performing...
Adding some colour to Poland’s transport
Austin Birks is in Poland, where he observed Sir Brian Souter’s eye catching and rapidly expanding PolskiBus operation in action. It was not a good start! Checking in at Gate K at Heathrow Airport, I was advised by a nice young lady in a LOT uniform, bearing a big fixed smile, that a plane had...
Visions of a greener future at Busworld
BAE Systems and Chinese newcomer BYD had some exciting developments in the world of greener buses at the Kortrijk show, writes Andrew Garnett. New vehicle propulsion technologies have come to the fore in recent years and with pressure on natural resources, the effects of climate change and increasing problems with air pollution in major cities...
