YR tests bus scheme
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• Yorkshire Rider has built a 150m test track and equipped a double-deck bus to demonstrate its plans for a guided busway in Leeds (CM 29 June5 July).
An MCW Metrobus has been fitted with an axle and guidewheels supplied by West Midlands Travel, where 14 similar buses were used on the Tracline operation at Short Heath. Tracline uses a central reservation, but YR argues that a guided busway is needed only at points where space is limited, because the system takes less space than a conventional bus lane.
The test track indicates that 2.74 metres of roadspace is needed, instead of 3.65 metres with an ordinary lane.
YR also plans to cut operating costs by using singledeckers in place of some double-deckers. It has ordered 15 single-deckers — its first since 1981 — and 15 doubledeckers, all expected by the end of the year. Ten Pluton Derwent-bodied Volvo BlOMs will be used on Pennine routes and five Daf Deltas are to be tried in Leeds. The doubledeckers will be 10 full-height Northern Counties-bodied Leyland Olympians and five Alexander-bodied Scanias.