Building up for dereg
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LONDON BUSES, the autonomous London Regional Transport bus operating business, is seeking tenders for the supply of three coaches, but it still awaits Government authority to buy doubledeck service buses next year.
It wants to extend its luxury coach operations, started last year when Ensignbus, the Essex dealer, provided it with a Berkhof-bodied Daf on extended loan.
The gradual reduction in LRT's overhead costs is helping it develop some more commercial activity, although it will be a long time before London Buses will be in a position even to consider dropping the use of sub-contracted coaches for its leisure work.
London Buses is also looking for Department of Transport authority to buy 260 doubledeck buses next year as the first stage of its large-scale Routemaster replacement programme.
This order, which will be one of the most significant contracts for the order starved bus manufacturing industry, could make or break one of the major suppliers.
The final choice is most likely to rest between Metro-Cammell Weymann's Metrobus, a Mark Three version of which is awaited later this year, and the Leyland Olympian. Both types are being tested by London Buses at present alongside Dennis's Dominator and the obsolescent Volvo Ailsa.