(26 Aug 2017, 7:54 pm)South Tyne Lad wrote Probably because the Citaro's were fitted with the AVID E-Fan, A Emission's saving device just through other part's of the bus instead of the Eminox and Exhaust Traps fitted to the Solar's.
Streetlite's obviously are fitted with there Micro-Hybrid system aswell as the E-Fan, So both on a whole were more environmentally friendly than the Eminox fitted Solar's they replaced, Which were Euro4 upon modifying while the Citaro's and WrightLite's were Euro5.
Don't know if this was a result of all Private Investment or if there replacements are still funded by the council, however if it was all private then I'm sure the Council wouldn't complain!
There's been a bit of discussion in the past about the mods.
Quite a few of us have our own specific niche interests. It could be allocations to Deptford, blobs on buses, Renowns, or the mechanical side of things.
One of mine is Public Funds being used to benefit the purse of a private PLC.
When GNE sell these vehicles, the potential to increase the sale value is going to be higher - if only because of the support of the LA's.
Anyway, I've found a quote from earlier this year.
There was discussion a while back about certain buses recieving eminox mods and it being funded by various local authorities. At the time, the query was whether those vehicles were to spend time within the same LA. As an example :- DCC fund mods to 5216 - it stays on routes that go in to Co Durham. 20 and then X35/X5.
I have no idea if it was ever confirmed what rules applied to the funding and if the vehicles were obliged to work in a specific area.
It might be worth looking to see where the old purple Solar's ended up...
DCC contributed a big chunk of money to install the Eminox mods on them.