Despite industry-wide moves toward zero-emission fleets, small operators Stephensons of Essex and NIBS Buses – run under the same management – remain fully diesel-powered. Maxson Goh finds out why electrification simply isn’t viable yet
When it comes to decarbonising the UK’s bus fleets, the direction of travel is crystal clear: zero emissions. Government targets, public pressure, and technological progress are all pushing the industry toward cleaner and greener solutions. But for smaller operators, particularly those based outside of major urban centres such as Stephensons of Essex and NIBS buses (which was acquired by the former in 2018), making that transition is not so straightforward.
To better understand the real-world challenges of electrification for a small operator, I travelled to Stephensons of Essex’s Rochford depot, just outside Southend-on-Sea, during the height of July’s heatwave. Tucked away behind a maze of units at the back of an industrial estate, I was greeted by parent company Eastern Transport Holdings’ Chairman Bill Hiron, who handed me a much needed ice-cold drink. As I quenched my thirst, Bill explained that both Stephensons and NIBS Buses now operate under a unified management structure at senior level, and that prior to the 2018 acquisition NIBS Buses had its own separate management, with Steve Nelson serving as Managing Director until his retirement. At the present day, each company retains its own depot supervisor and engineering manager. However, above that, there is a shared operations manager, group managing director, and group engineering director overseeing both companies.
Before discussing the situation with electric vehicles, Bill gave me a bit of a history lesson of both companies, a theme that we will revisit right at the end of the article. “Stephensons, which I’ve had an involvement in dating back to 2001, was originally founded in 1972 by John Stephenson,” he shared. “John was originally a sole trader running a coach, then a couple of coaches, then a few more. It was pretty much a coach company based initially at Southend Airport and then later here, until deregulation in the mid ‘80s and just afterwards in the early ‘90s. And then it evolved into running buses as well. Since I took ownership in 2001, it has become predominantly a bus operator.
“NIBS Buses, which we acquired in 2018 has a very similar history. That was founded in 1968 by Chris and Bill Nelson in Wickford, just up the road. And that again, was originally a coach company that evolved after deregulation to running a lot more on the bus side. It was eventually taken over by Chris and Bill’s son Steve, and in 2018, Steve decided he wanted to move on to different things, so we bought NIBS. Both very similar companies, with very similar backgrounds, very similar mixes of work. But slightly different geographically, so it made a lot of sense to buy NIBS when the opportunity arose.”
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