Lowdown on a rising market
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• A slimmer and fitter line-up of bus and coach manufacturers came to Coach and Bus 93 with an innovative array of models to tempt Britain's ailing bus and coach operators into taking advantage of the so called green shoots of recovery.
Ultra-low-floor buses are a familiar sight on the Continent; now British operators are using them in a bid to reverse declining usage.
Examples from Scania, Dennis and NeapIan debuted at the NEC with stepless entrances to the front section of the saloon. Scania's exhibit, a two-door demonstrator MaxCi bus, was bodied by East Lanes coachbuilders to a Scania design.
The Dennis Lance SLF, exhibited for the first time in its finished form, has a British designed body built by Robert Wright of Ballymena. The NEC model is the first of a batch for London Buses. It features a low-floor independently sprung front section married to the rear module of a standard-height Lance bus chassis.
Power come from a Cummins C-Series engine mounted longitudinally at the rear, driving through a fully automatic ZF box.
Neoplan showed a right-hand-drive version of its established German-built product alongside a 15m four-axle version of the Skyliner double-deck coach. This 88-seater has dispensation to operate in German and the Netherlands but at present can not he operated in the UK. No-step entrance to the first Wright-bodied Dennis Lance SLF for London Buses.
Britain's largest coachbuilder showed up-dated versions of its Premier and Excaliber coaches with improved interior finish and new rear light clusters. United Bus was represented with an updated Daf SB3000 coach chassis; an economy version of the Bova Futura, the FLD; and the first luxury coach version of the Optare Spectra double-decker fitted with full air conditioning. Making its show debut was the updated MetroRider midi.
One of the surprise exhibits was the Czech-built Oasa 903 luxury coach on a MAN HOCL 18.360 chassis. The company is represented in the UK by Alan Wilson PSV of Ratby, Leics which also exhibited nine and 11.5m versions of the US-built Blue Bird single-deck coach.