Almost two months after the end of the period, the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) has released bus and coach registration figures for Quarter 1, 2016. The original table supplied listed only 10 manufacturers including minibus builders Ford and Peugeot, but rather than list them separately as had been the norm previously, many large bus and coach suppliers had been lumped together under ‘Other.’
Pressed for more information, the SMMT has supplied the accompanying more comprehensive table. According to the SMMT, “the figures include any vehicle over 3.5 tonnes that is registered with the DVSA under the bus or minibus body code.”
Asked why bodybuilder Caetano is listed, CBW was told: “There is no double-counting in the figures. Each registration is listed against the brand that appears in the DVSA registration form.”
CBW suspects that the 40 registrations listed for Caetano might refer to vehicles like the 12 CT650-bodied Scanias supplied to Italian operator Airport Bus Express which is operating them between Stansted Airport and London. Those entered service late in 2015. The chassis were sold to the bodybuilder, which then sold the vehicles to the operator.
There has been no response from the SMMT to CBW’s request for the equivalent Quarter 1 figures from 2015 for the extended table although the relevant data was supplied with the original shorter 2016 Q1 table. That would have enabled us to calculate the percentage changes for the manufacturers not listed on that table.
