(12 Mar 2015, 5:59 pm)aureolin wrote Of course. Practicality is the key, but imagination grabs customer attention.
Deckers for the 56 last year - practical. Everyone and their dog knew deckers were coming, because of the years of capacity issues.
Solo SRs with WiFi and next stop. announcements, replacing clapped out MPDs - both practical and imaginative. Nobody guessed this, least of all the Consett residents, who had long complained about their 'crap old yellow buses'.
The Solo SRs allocated to the "Venture" group of services only feature the provision of Next Stop Announcements. Sadly, they don't feature Wi-Fi.
We know that mini/midibuses have an expected life span of 12 years and that anything bigger has an expected life span of 15. This is the starting point for any year, when putting in guesses for the vehicle size that will be invested in. Of course, DDA-compliance is an additional factor to keep in mind, but buses can also be converted to meet DDA specification too, so best not to get too hung up on this one.