Stagecoach spends £60m on new buses

Transport group Stagecoach said today it will invest around £60 million in nearly 400 'greener' vehicles for its bus and coach fleet.

The first of the new vehicles, which meet European emission standards, will be delivered from May and include a new coach model for its megabus budget service.

All but 24 of the vehicles will be built by Falkirk, Guildford and Scarborough-based Alexander Dennis and its Plaxton coach building subsidiary.

Volvo, Optare, Wrightbus and Van Hool will supply the rest of the new fleet, which is based around 95 double-decker buses, 87 single-deckers, 141 midi-buses, 11 mini-buses, 37 coaches and 19 hybrid vehicles, which produce 30% less carbon emissions than standard buses.

It includes eight more vehicles for the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, which is the longest of its kind in the world and has been used by more than a million passengers since it opened in August last year.

The company said it had invested £370 million in new vehicles for its regional bus operations over the past five years.

UK bus managing director Les Warneford said: "This latest multi-million pound investment is part of our commitment to give local communities high quality, good value bus travel."

Stagecoach carries around 2.5 million passengers on its 8.000 buses every day in a network stretching across the UK. Its major bus operations are in London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and Cambridge.

PA