(24 Nov 2020, 1:05 pm)Andreos1 wrote And those vehicles which are a lot newer than that, who have parts in ready supply?
It's not that I agree with the grants funding upgrades or additional handouts supporting multi-million pound plc's to run their vehicles on an evening. Far from it.
It's the hypocrisy and contradictions we see coming out from operators.
They want funding, grants and support - but not government regulation.
They will use the pr teams to spin how wonderful their vehicles are and how they're loaded with fancy gadgets - but not mention that there were a fair few pounds chucked their way to help with the process.
They tell us how they look after passengers and make their experience better - but don't run a bus to get people home. Unless there's a bit of funding to help them achieve that.
Getting back to the emissions part of the convo, I'm surprised we've not seen anything like we saw with the National's and their re-engine programme.
I've no idea how viable that was at the time and whether the cost of the re-engines were justified versus the age and subsequent use, but I wouldn't mind seeing if anything was being explored elsewhere.
Or, if manufacturers are just wanting operators to spend the cash on a new bus instead.
Personally, I think it's less of them not wanting to run the evening buses and more of them taking advantage of the fact that those services are essential and the councils will pay to have them run. Until recently that wasn't really an 'issue' for the passengers, or even widely known about, but when GCT started to undercut GNE and take the evening services away from them it brought it under the spotlight. I'm not saying it's an ethical thing to do, but I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing if I was in their shoes.
As for the re-engining, it depends on how you look at it.
If you have an older vehicle that's worth say £15-20k and to put a new efficient engine in is going to cost another £15k, you're instantly going to think it's not worth bothering with. But if that vehicle is otherwise fine, and you can get another 5 years out of it (probably the best part of £50k in payments on a new StreetDeck/E400) and save some fuel in the process, suddenly it looks a lot more appealing.
Plus, GNE are looking at replacing the engine and hybrid drivetrain in the B5Hs, so if the trial vehicle ever comes back and it turns out well, we may see more of that in the future.