Mega-deckers for Stagecoach
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• The biggest double-deck buses ever to run on British roads have been ordered by Scottish-based Stagecoach Holdings, one of Britain's fastest-expanding independent PSV operators.
The "Mega-deckers" will each carry around 107 seated passengers, and will be based on Leyland's existing threeaxle Olympian chassis, a design already used in Hong Kong.
Stagecoach Holdings has ordered three high-capacity three-axle Olympians — in addition to their order last month for 30 conventional twoaxle Olympian double-deckers. The three new buses will have 164kW (220hp) Gardner 6LXCT engines linked to ZF automatic gearboxes. A similar power-train combination was also fitted in Stagecoach's previous double-deck order.
Bodywork will be built in Scotland by Walter Alexander of Falkirk. Each bus will cost almost £100,000, making them the most expensive doubledeckers ever purchased for local bus operations in Britain.
The new buses will be evaluated on different types of service by Stagecoach Holding's subsidiaries in England.
"There are a number of areas where we want to explore the benefits of maximumcapacity buses" explains Brian Soutar, the company's managing director.
"We can see scope for cutting peak period duplication of services, and we can also see possibilities on heavily loaded school journeys."
Owen Quinn, Leyland Bus' sales and marketing director says: "The concept of maximum-capacity doubledeckers has not previously been explored in Britain, but with over 220 three-axle Olympians delivered to Hong Kong during this year alone, we were able to show Stagecoach that we have a proven product which meets their needs.
This is an exciting innovation — we know other major operators will now be weighing up the economics of running highcapacity double-deckers where they have a high level of passenger demand."
The three-axle Olympian chassis is only marginally longer than an existing two-axle double decker — but by adding a third axle its gross vehicle weight can be uprated to 22 tonnes. The Stagecoach Megadeckers will be the first threeaxle double-deck buses built for operation in Britain to have more than 100 seats.