Tri-axle double-deckers for the Cambridge Busway, electric vehicles for Manchester and South Wales, and Plaxton Panorama double-deck coaches for Scottish Citylink and Megabus.com are among the highlights of an £80million order for 351 vehicles for Stagecoach’s operations outside London. Likely to be the biggest vehicle order for the UK this year, it calls for 175 double-deck buses, 154 single-deckers and 22 coaches and once again provides Alexander Dennis (and its Plaxton coach brand) with the biggest part of its business — 72% of the chassis and 89% of the bodies.
Alexander Dennis is supplying 131 Enviro400 double-deckers, 95 of the 11.6m Enviro200 and 28 shorter Enviro200 midibuses. Fifty-one of the Enviro400s have already been delivered, 20 to the Cumbria & North Lancashire fleet and 31 SmartHybrid variants to the North and East Scotland subsidiaries; a reduction in Bus Service Operators Grant payments for low carbon buses in Scotland took effect from 1 April, prompting several operators to bring forward deliveries of compliant vehicles.
Stagecoach is the first customer to follow Lothian Buses’ lead in buying the tri-axle Volvo B8L with 13.4m Alexander Dennis Enviro400XLB body. It is taking 12…
