As a self-confessed StreetDeck fan, I thought I’d go into ‘reviewing’ GNE’s new ADL Enviro200 MMC for the Green Arrow 97 service with an open mind. Having been on the demonstration vehicle a few weeks back, I was pleasantly surprised with how nice and rattle free it was compared to previous examples I’ve been on.
I think I’ll start off with what I don’t like about it, I’ve made no bones about hating the look of the E200MMC, and my opinion on that has not changed. I do however think that the bright green base colour is a clever distraction from what is otherwise an ‘unappealing’ design. If we take a look at the livery, in the past when I had only seen photographs, I thought it looked a bit too cluttered with all the arrows, but I’m happy to say in person it doesn’t stick out as much as I thought it would. I might go as far as saying I think it fits well with the overall design of the bus.
Now that I have seen it in person enough times, I’ve think I’ve grown to like the new corporate livery, and I think it lends itself rather well to adaptation into a branded route. Another piece of design that I like is the extra piece of glass above the rear window. It really does let lots of light flood into what I think would be a very dingy back row with the relatively small rear window.
If I move on to the interior, the first thing you notice when you step on board (after the wonderful, yet probably very unhealthy new bus smell) is the drop down vandal screens, which makes it a lot easier to communicate with the driver! As you step further into the bus, you notice how bright and airy it feels, I was expecting the dark red wall panels to make it feel dark and dingy, but the large windows help make up for it.
While on the subject of interior styling, there were a few things which I’m not particularly a fan of, first of which is the mismatched emergency exit door. While I get it may have been intentional in order to make it stand out, I don’t think the grey door fits well with the beige plastic of the rest of the bus. I’m also not a big fan of the ceiling choice, the white plastic with a subtle texture makes it looks like they haven’t peeled the protective film off the ceiling yet, I would have liked to see the same blue-sky vinyl that has been used on the StreetDecks.
These vehicles are fitted with start stop technology to reduce emissions, although it was clear the driver wasn’t a fan as he would keep revving the engine while stopped to make sure it didn’t turn off. At the next stop I found out why he was doing this, the engine is fairly rough on start-up, although I suspect this could just be because it needs running in.
Compared to the demonstrator vehicle that I had a ride on a few weeks back, it felt quite sluggish up the hills around Whickham, and the demo had a full load. There were also quite few not-so-smooth gear changes thrown in as well for good measure. It wasn’t just me that picked up on this as when changing drivers in Gateshead, I overheard the driver saying he thinks there may be an issue with it.
An issue I have with most new buses is ride quality, and the E200MMC is no exception. It’s perfectly adequate over relatively new roads, but as soon as the roads start to fall apart, so does the ride. The firm ride means that you feel every imperfection in the road, but it is no worse than a StreetLite, perhaps a little better, but I’d have to ride them back to back on the same route to pick a winner. I personally feel it’s a downgrade in terms of pure ride quality over the Solars that they replace, but that brings me on to the next part of a good ride.
Now, to me, there is one thing that can make or break a bus, and that’s the choice of seats. It doesn’t matter how quiet and smooth the engine is, if you can only last 5 minutes on the seat, it’s a failure. Go North East decided to fit both the E200MMC single deckers and E400MMC double deckers with ADL’s SmartSeat rather than the Esteban Civic V3 seats that has been standard fit for many years now. Also new is the switch to half leather and half moquette from full leather seats. While I do have a preference for full leather seats, I will say the new style looks considerably better in person than it does in any photograph. The leather is softer than has been used in the past, and the new moquette feels thicker and more ‘grippy’ than their previous design. The rationale behind moving away from full leather is that leather seats are hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. However, I found that the new moquette tends to trap the heat in more than the leather seats, so my back felt very warm after a short while, which doesn’t happen with the full leather seats.
In terms of comfort, on first impressions the seats are very well padded, bordering on the line of being too spongy, but thankfully not crossing over. As I said previously, the texture of the new moquette means it the seats are grippy, but they still allow you to move around and find a comfortable position.
I found the seat base to be a bit too short for my typical ‘slouch’ seating style, but the lack of any form of legroom at most seats meant I had no choice but to sit up right, albeit with my knees still stuck in the chair in front.
My preferred seat on most buses is right beside the emergency exit due to the increased leg room on offer, but the design of the emergency exit door made sure I was uncomfortable there too. I feel like the handle on the door protrudes too far and it was digging into my arm.
For the first 30 minutes or so of the journey I found the seats very comfortable, the backrest had just the right amount of lean, and had a good amount of lumbar support. However, after about 30 minutes I felt like I had sunk through the top layer of padding and was sitting on the hard structure of the seat, granted I’m not exactly the lightest person around, but I’ve never had this issue with other seats (well, I’ve sat on worse, but usually it’s bad from the start). Being a regular user of the X21, I’m used to sitting on the same seat for a good 2 hours and to be honest I expected more of the SmartSeat. I know seats are a very subjective thing, but I personally prefer the Civic V3 seats on board the ex-Castles Express StreetDecks, while they are considerably firmer, they are more supportive over a long period of time. The leather seats on The Angel StreetDecks are a step above this with their extra padded layer, but I prefer the texture of the leather on the older examples.
After that half an hour, I had to move seats, which segues me into talking about the on board technology.
The back of each seat is fitted with an array of features, including a stop button, phone holder, USB port and two coat hooks. The USB port is a standard feature on most new buses now, but what is new is the stop button at every seat, this is a very handy feature especially when the bus is crowded, I’m used to buses like the StreetLite where there are nowhere near enough stop buttons, requiring you to actually stand up to hit the stop button at some seats, and when you hate people as much as I do, it’s better to miss your stop and have to get the bus back than it is asking the person next to you to move. Now, the downside of this is that the buttons are very easy to accidentally press, on my 50-minute journey the button was accidentally pressed twice. In fact, I accidentally pressed it myself when deboarding in Newcastle.
The phone holder is a good idea in theory, however my LG G7 just squeezes in, so people with the latest iPhone 11 Pro Max will probably have an issue. The limited size also means that there isn’t enough room for me to plug in the USB cable in the bottom of the phone while keeping it in the holder. And according to GNE, the main use for this feature would be to watch videos on the go, but without the ability to charge at the same time, I feel like it wasn’t thought through enough. Wireless charging was an option available for the phone holders, but unfortunately this option was not ticked by GNE, and I feel like this would have made the phone holder more useful.
Underneath the seat back console are two hooks, which in my opinion are borderline useless. The hooks are too small to be able to hook a carrier bag on, and too low to hang your coat on, unless you like having your coat touch the floor.
The new Green Arrow buses are among the first to receive Go North East’s updated Next Stop Announcement system, going back to using a TFT display rather than the LED display that has been standard fit for the past few years. While I didn’t get a chance to experience the new system, I have it on good authority that the new TFT displays are considerably better than the TFT displays of yore, and let’s be honest, they can’t be any worse!
To sum up, if I had to pick between the Wrightbus StreetLite and the ADL E200MMC based purely on my experience of GNE’s example, it would be an easy victory for the ADL. Which is something I never thought I’d say based on my previous experience of the E200MMC with other operators, I just hope that Go North East are able to keep it rattle free!
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