SWANSEA REDISCOVERS TWO DECKS

Students have taken to Swansea’s new Unibus services like ducks to water but changing the habits of the second city’s permanent population takes longer, as RHODRI CLARK discovered on a recent visit

Students queue to board Wright Eclipse Gemini 2-bodied Volvo B9TL 36213 (BJ12 VWV) on Unibus service 8 in mid-afternoon at the Bay Campus temporary bus stop.

It is an almost surreal experience to be anywhere in Wales on a Tuesday afternoon and watch a double-decker fill up with passengers who are all young adults.

Full buses of any size are now something of a rarity in Wales, even during the morning and evening peaks in many areas. With free concessionary pass holders now accounting for at least 46% of all bus journeys in the principality, a bus in which none of the passengers has grey hair is almost unheard of.

I am observing a Unibus-branded First Cymru Volvo B9TL with Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 body at Swansea University’s Bay Campus, which opened in 2015 almost 4miles east of the city centre.

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