ZEBRA 2 (Read 2,036 times)

[dougie]

Great news for Chesterfield and for Stagecoach

I look forward to the day that these kind of vehicles become “the norm”, rather than reliant upon bids to compete with other areas for government funding (at one time, level access buses used to have “super low floor” branding on them to promote this new feature, but after a few years it became something you’d take for granted, maybe one day electric buses will be more affordable and we’ll take that for granted too)

I don’t know the Chesterfield bridge in question but maybe one reason is because they thought they’d only win with a low enough number of buses, maybe because the economics of keeping a fleet of non-electric buses for the ten tendered routes means that to keep them viable they need similar buses on the 90 too, maybe as a high numbered and not particularly frequent route it was easily forgotten from the list given to the PR department, dunno!

[duncan]

Mar 23, 2024 9:27:07 GMT dougie said:

I don’t know the Chesterfield bridge in question

The bridge is 10'3" and many single decks wont fit through. As most electric buses have gubbins on the roof there is no way one would pass under it and emerge complete

[teapot42]

I think part of the concern that the 90 isn't included comes from the fact that Stagecoach don't seem that committed to it. It's already been cut in places and there keeps being talk of further cuts. The extension to Creswell doesn't make a lot of sense - it's more trying to cover a route rather than actually being a good use of resources or BSIP money. I can see the difficulty of keeping enough E200s available once the rest of the fleet goes electric could well be considered another nail in the coffin of the route.

One thing that confuses me a little is that the DCC bid was classed as rural, but most of the rural services aren't going electric. You could possibly count the X17 as rural at a pinch, and maybe the very eastern end of the 1, but the vast majority of what these buses will run is very much urban.

I'd imagine the fleet after these arrive will be E200s and Solos. I'm not sure if a standard E200 can even run the Matlock routes, I've only seen Solos and the short E200 on them - the hump back bridge at Chatsworth as well as some narrow lanes apparently are the reason for this. However, the Solos they have are getting on a bit so I'm not sure if there are plans to move more here, or even buy some new ones. Of course, E100EVs, electric Solos or various Mellor vehicles could have covered these as well as the 90.