James Day visits Chris Rooney of Edinburgh-based Ultimate Highland Experience, which recently took on a fleet of Turas900s to a unique specification
Edinburgh’s market for tour operators utilising small to medium-sized vehicles is proving to be highly lucrative, with many operators enjoying a great deal of success with fleets of minibuses and midicoaches.
One such organisation is Ultimate Highland Experience (UHE), a company which is growing at a phenomenal rate having made 10 fleet additions this year. I visited the company’s Transport Manager, Chris Rooney, who explained more about the workings of the operation.
Chris said he has dealt with large vehicles for the majority of his adult life, having joined the industry as a bus driver at the age of 21 and obtaining a HGV licence shortly thereafter. He took the opportunity to move to Canada, where he was the operations manager for a forestry company, before returning to the UK to take up the role of transport manager at UHE.[wlm_nonmember][…]
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Touring the highlands
UHE provides tours all over the Highlands, ranging in length from a day trip to a fortnight. It also travels south of the border regularly, with trips to York, the Lake District, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Alnwick Castle forming part of its offering.
The company offers 28 scheduled tours for small-medium sized groups, along with some bespoke whiskey distillery tours through its Scottish Routes sister brand, which utilises a pair of Mercedes-Benz Sprinters from Paramount Conversions.
Scottish Routes is an upmarket tour company which was acquired by the business this year, and travels to around 50 different distilleries in total. Generally, a tour will cover up to 10, depending on its length.
The popularity of the tours allows the company to run them to a regular schedule, without requiring group vehicle hire. Popular destinations like Loch Ness have daily departures at 0800hrs every morning throughout the summer and winter.
Tours lasting for more than one day offer a choice of accommodation, from hostel to hotel, allowing them to appeal to multiple markets. A baggage allowance of up to 15kg is also provided.
The entire fleet at UHE carries the Mercedes-Benz badge and operates out of two depots – one in Edinburgh and a second in Inverness, which is managed from the Edinburgh premises. The Edinburgh depot which I visited was strikingly clean and bright, no doubt helped by the fact maintenance of the vehicles is outsourced, and the vehicles looked striking in their stylish white livery with blue cross design.
The fleet is composed of four 32-seater Noone Turas900-bodied Mercedes-Benz Ategos, eight 16-seater EVM Elegance Sprinters, six more older Sprinters from Paramount Conversion and six 29-seater Plaxton Cheetahs.
Specially crafted
The Turas900s used by the company are something of a mixed specification, falling somewhere between the Turas900V and the more high-spec Turas900. As such, the specification doesn’t currently have a specific name, and is colloquially known as a crossover.
Paul Gardner, General Manager of Minis to Midis, explained that the order was worth around £560,000 and represents the largest single order of the facelifted Turas900 model. The vehicles were priced at £5,000 above the base Turas900V, and £5,000 below the top-spec Turas900.
Paul added: “This order was significant to Minis to Midis as we had tried to supply coaches to UHE for several years. This is also a breakthrough order for the Mercedes-Benz based Turas product on the prestigious Royal Mile in Edinburgh.”
The vehicles use the 10.5-tonne chassis of the Turas900, but with some of the specification traits of a Turas900V. Each retains the V’s steel wheels, standard Mercedes-Benz Atego dash with OEM demisters and its air-conditioning setup, where the saloon air-conditioning is ducted into the driver’s area.
“We needed to have the standard Turas900 chassis because it’s essential that we have enough usable luggage space for the passengers onboard,” Chris explained.
“The boot you get on the Turas900 is massive, but with the 9.5-tonne Turas900V we would need to either reduce the seating or not allow as much luggage.”
The vehicles have also taken on the automated manual transmission from the Turas900, while the Turas900V uses manual transmission.
Another major deviation from the Turas900V specification is the seating and flooring used by the vehicles. This has been upgraded to the executive seating with padded flaps and seat edgings, and wood-effect flooring offered on the Turas900. The Turas900V usually comes with a standard grey interior, but UHE asked to choose the interior colours, using the blue of the Scottish flag.
“The vehicles are being used for our lengthier tours,” said Chris. “So far, we like them and they’re doing what we require.
Their fuel economy is excellent and they are comfortable and spacious for passengers.”
Making an entrance
Perhaps the greatest draw of the Turas900 for UHE was its entrance.
Noone has adapted the Mercedes-Benz Atego to position the driver further back – a change which has been approved by Mercedes-Benz. While this means there is a sizable cavity under the bonnet in front of the engine, it means there is not as much of the intrusive engine cover inside the vehicle, but most importantly for UHE it means passengers see the driver when they board, as they are parallel to the entrance.
“We want our drivers to greet passengers when they board and give them a proper welcome,” Chris said.
“We have them all and smart uniforms and encourage them to wear kilts, which many of them do. We have one driver who is a big guy with a ginger beard and, with his tartan kilt, he looks like a proper highlander. He gets lots of smiles from passengers when they see him.
“You lose that if passengers have to get on halfway down the bus.”
The investment made by Noone has made the Turas900 the only Atego-based passenger transport vehicle with the setup – a strong unique selling point.
With the driving position moved back, an easy assumption to make is that the capacity of the vehicle will suffer. However in practice this isn’t really a problem. Paul Gardner of Minis to Midis has described 33 seats as the ‘Goldilocks number’ for the vehicle, as it allows the perfect balance of usable luggage space and passenger capacity, with the least compromise.
Passenger considerations
One of the key changes on the vehicles is found on the back row of seating. The middle seat of the row of five has been taken out to give passengers some more space. In addition, the row has been brought forward a few millimetres (though still providing passengers with the expected legroom) and the rearmost curtain has been moved back so it does not cover the vehicle’s side window when not drawn. All of this was done at the request of UHE owner Michael Bremner, who asked Minis to Midis to find a way to improve visibility for passengers at the back of the vehicle.
The result is that passengers on the back row of seats can easily see out of the side windows of the vehicle, without needing to lean forward or sit awkwardly. The alteration to the curtain has now been adopted by Noone as a standard feature on all new Turas900s produced from now on.
The vehicles also feature the first ever translator system fitted by Noone. Provided by Autosound and Audioguide, the systems require an extended binnacle on the driver console with a small screen installed.
Currently, the system supports eight languages, though UHE is looking at extending the number offered in the future.
Passengers can use the translator by plugging headphones into jack plugs on the rear of seats (or on the decency screen in front of front-row passengers).
UHE provides purposely-made branded headphones for passengers to use. The quality of these headphones is excellent – they arrive neatly packaged and use inner-ear buds, helping to shut out any outside noise. Passengers are able to take these headphones away with them.
The vehicles are also the first of their kind to have USB charging points installed in the side walls, instead of overhead.
Suitable replacements
The four Turas900s have replaced a pair of Unvi vehicles – one 33-seater and a 29-seater. The other two are additions to the fleet.
“The Unvis were good vehicles and did well, but what we have found since we started operating the Turas900s is that we’ve had less problems with travel sickness because they are more stable,” Chris said.
“The roads we travel on are often like a rollercoaster, so travel sickness is common on our tours and one of the reasons we chose wood flooring over carpet – ease of cleaning.
“We’ve found that that these vehicles with their 210bhp engines cope with the rollercoaster terrain very well. I’ve had drivers tell me that a fully laden Turas900 travelling uphill can overtake a fully laden Sprinter on the same road, which is very impressive.”
Chris said that the vehicles have been averaging about 17.4mpg in their highland operating territory. This is close to the fuel economy achieved by its Plaxton Cheetahs – a much lighter vehicle.
“Most of our drivers stick with full auto when driving them, but I do encourage them to sometimes play about with manual options to help them get used to the vehicle.
“As good as automatics are, sometimes the human brain can be better, and the driver may want to hold that gear when going up the hill.
An elegant fleet
UHE has also taken delivery of eight brand new EVM Elegance 16-seater Sprinters this summer, all of which were fleet additions.
The high-spec vehicles, powered by Euro 6 163bhp engines coupled to six-speed manual gearboxes, feature Icomera WiFi, USB Ports in the side walls at every seat row, a fridge and air-conditioning throughout. The seating is very similar to that which is used on the Turas900s – semi-synthetic with three-point seatbelts.
One quirk of the new Sprinters is an additional microphone, positioned on the pillar close to the vehicle’s courier seat. This allows a guide to continue using the microphone while still allowing passengers to board and alight, because there is not a wire hanging across the entrance obstructing them.
Previously, UHE’s Sprinters were sourced from Paramount Conversions. The main reason for this was that Paramount could offer Sprinters with two glass side windows with a single pillar between them, something which EVM was unable to at the time.
“The vehicles from EVM are extremely nice,” said Chris.
“Combined with the Turas fleet, it means we’ve increased the size of our fleet by 10 vehicles this year alone – almost doubling
the size of the fleet. Another advantage of the rapid procurement of new vehicles is that a very large proportion of the fleet is now to Euro 6 emission standards. With Edinburgh looking like one of the cities most likely to implement a Low Emission Zone in the next few years, UHE will be well placed to comply with it.”
Golden Mile presence
UHE has serious high-street presence in Edinburgh, with a ticketing office boasting the enviable address of No. 1, The Golden Mile.
The well-staffed ticket and booking desk shares part of the ground floor of a Caffe Nero coffee shop, with offices located on the first floor close by. With the company’s brand able to be shown in such a prominent place, it’s easy to see how it has been able to grow at such a rate. It also makes the business very tourist-friendly, allowing people staying in the city to stumble upon the company.
The company said: “Our prime position sales ticket office sharing space with Caffe Nero on the Royal Mile most definitely provides us with access to impulse travellers and a high percentage of sales generated by the shop are for next day tours.”
Top tours.
Julie Cooper, Head of Operations at UHE, explained what some of the operator’s stand-out tours are.
She said: “Our most popular tour is our one-day Loch Ness Tour. We have taken 15,000 passengers year to date in 2017.
“This is followed by our three-day Skye Experience from Edinburgh and one-day Isle of Skye from Inverness, with around 4,000 passengers travelling on each year to date. Our five-day Scottish Choice has seen a 50% increase in passenger numbers from 2016 and is fast becoming a favourite with tourists coming to Scotland.
“We launched our four-day Islay and three-day Mull and Iona tours this season, and the customer feedback has been 100% positive. Their popularity continues to grow.
“The future for Highland Experience Tours is all about continued growth and digital transformation. We are launching new extended tours up to 12 days and implementing a new integrated management system.”[/wlm_ismember]
