(17 Feb 2015, 6:14 pm)aureolin wrote Remember that the Nexus QCS model doesn't permit the use of double door vehicles, unless it's specifically required for a route. I don't think any company would risk purchasing such vehicles at this stage, in case they end up having to offload them on the cheap.
(17 Feb 2015, 6:44 pm)Andreos1 wrote Forgot about that!
Was there any additional detail, apart from euro spec?
Yes, I'd say that the Quality Contracts Scheme will have quite a big impact on the decision-making when planning investment. Could you justify spending £100,000 on a car if you knew you were going to lose your job and would be on Jobseekers Allowance? The answer is probably not.
I think the same will apply for the bus operators too. As you can all well imagine, if the scheme does go ahead, then it's likely that the bus operators in the region will wish to retain as much work as possible. Sadly, none of the region's bus operators have a full fleet of vehicles to 'Euro 5' status, meaning that operators will be forced to give up work or bring their fleet up to the required standard. This can be achieved by direct investment or by Eminox modifications - both have their own associated costs, though the latter costs a lot less. Go North East has already SCRT-fitted four batches of Scania L94s to bring them up to 'Euro 5' status: "Loop" and "Highwayman" were the initial batch, and "Prince Bishops" and "Fast Cats" followed. It is actually possible to modify all of the vehicles in Go North East's fleet to bring them up to 'Euro 5' status - even the Volvo B10BLEs. If it makes commercial sense to retain the Volvo B10BLEs at the end of this year, they can be modified so that they are DDA-compliant. The significance of the cost of this job varies by vehicle, but generally speaking, the easier to convert a vehicle to become DDA-compliant, the cheaper.
If Go North East cannot justify spending x amount of money to fund the cost of new vehicles under a Quality Contracts Scheme, then modifying older buses will be the way forward...