(14 Nov 2014, 7:55 pm)aureolin wrote Not necessarily. They'll have given a commitment to run the contract with buses of a certain specification, but I doubt they'd have had to disclose anything beyond that.
When the bidding for the contract took place, the electric buses were still used. These were briefly used by Stanley Travel but were later collected by DCC since they technically own the buses. Any company could say that they aim to operate the service using buses which suit the required spec. Stanley Travel obviously had to offer more than the other operators since, at the time, the same buses would be used regardless of who won the contract.