The industry marked the end of the 23-year phasing in of low-floor buses with a series of farewell events and running days for stepentrance double-deckers in December, most of them on New Year’s Eve.
To comply with the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act, only compliant wheelchair accessible vehicles may be used on regular registered local bus services. The rules already applied to single-deckers and the use of step-entrance double-deckers, and their non-compliant low-floor counterparts, was outlawed after 31 December.
There is a concession for the limited use of non-compliant heritage buses, and Transport for London’s heritage Routemasters can continue operating as their service is overlaid on the high-frequency low-floor route 15.
Most of the events focused on Leyland and Volvo Olympians, with Preston Bus running four of its 25-year-old Leylands — two bodied by Leyland and two by Northern Counties — on four routes on New Year’s Eve, when Catch 22 Bus also operated some heritage buses in Blackpool.
Three days earlier, Pilkington Bus ran five Olympians in service in Accrington. These were an all-Leyland example new to London Buses and more recently with East Yorkshire, and three Volvos — an East…
