First Eastern Counties has relaunched its long-distance Excel route between Norwich and Peterborough, utilising a fleet of the first ADL Enviro400 City-bodied Scanias with diesel drives. James Day reports
On Wednesday, 29 January 2020, the first two of 19 brand new Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL) Enviro400 City-bodied Scania N250UD double-deckers were launched by First Eastern Counties in Norwich. The fleet represents a £5.3m investment – £280,000 per vehicle – and will run on the Excel service between Norwich and Peterborough. They are expected to go into full service on 17 February. The project is the culmination of two years’ work from the operator and its supplier partners.
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Each vehicle is equipped with a Euro VI Scania engine and ZF EcoLife fully automatic transmission. The heavy chassis is designed to be robust to cope with the demands of interurban work, according to Mark Oliver, UK Bus and Coach Fleet Sales General Manager at Scania. He commented: “While five years ago all operators were prioritising lightweight vehicles, we’re now seeing renewed interest in more durable chassis, and we’re quoting people now who we haven’t heard from for those five years.” He also noted that the heavier vehicle with its more powerful engine could actually be more efficient on the A47, which makes up the bulk of the Excel route, since a less powerful engine would not perform as well at higher speeds. Steve Wickers, Managing Director of First Eastern Counties, confirmed that the robustness of the vehicle was a key reason it was chosen for the demanding route.
The new Scania ADLs have arrived with a full rebrand, a design from Ray Stenning at Best Impressions. Each vehicle has a striking red, maroon and gold colouring instead of the previous dark blue and gold, with the new livery featuring details of the destinations on the route. The touch of the design firm can also be seen in the stylish interior. The top deck is particularly light and airy, with wide glazing at the rear and a roof hatch allowing light to flood in from all directions.
The 19 new vehicles replace 17 integral ADL Envrio400s, which will be relocated to the X1, a route between Norwich and Lowestoft. The higher vehicle requirement reflects updates to the service, which includes an improved frequency and non-stop journeys between Dereham and Norwich, as well as faster connections between Norwich and Swaffham/Kings Lynn. Once the new timetable is introduced, First expects Swaffham and Kings Lynn passengers to benefit from an almost 20 minute time saving on their journeys.
Technology showcase
A high specification has been applied to the vehicles. This includes comfortable but lightweight high-back Lazzerini seats, adapted from the company’s Transito seat with a bespoke headrest and cushion shape and trimmed in two-tone Muirhead leather, as well as Mobitech next stop information audio-visual displays from McKenna Brothers – incorporating a new 28” stretched TFT screen at the front of the upper deck – and the Smartvision mirrorless camera system amongst the technology onboard. Each seat has access to a bell push and either USB or wireless charging, with two tables available on the top deck. Seatbacks also feature a coat hook.
Another piece of technology on board is a Vehicle Avoidance Lateral Lights (VALL) system from Jimmy Beam Downlights Limited (JBDL), which was fitted to the vehicles during production. The system illuminates the road to each side of the vehicle, helping to highlight the ‘area of high risk’ (1.5 metres) of recommended clearance which should be given when overtaking. This is of particular concern with regards to vulnerable road users, like cyclists.
JBDL highlighted Operation Close Pass, an initiative by the police across the UK to crack down on dangerously close overtaking manoeuvre, which it claims the system will help operators to comply with.
As well as helping drivers to see the high risk areas in their mirrors (or in this case, in the monitors of Smartvision), the illumination helps to highlight danger areas to other road users, which helps to persuade them from dangerous actions.
Scania’s C300 telematics system is also included on the vehicles.
First journey
Launch attendees, which included interested reporters from local radio and television stations, were transported to Mid-Norfolk Railway in Dereham for lunch.
The delegation, which included many members of the local council, were clearly impressed by the vehicles. One exclaimed: “Wow!” as he reached the top of the stairs to the upper deck.
The ride was smooth and reasonably quiet, with passengers on the upper deck not needing to raise their voices a significant amount to overcome the engine noise. My usual test of ride quality is whether I can read from my smartphone while onboard without feeling unwell. I was able to do so, while taking advantage of the handy USB charging ports which can be easily reached from every seat onboard. The seats were very comfortable, as well as looking the part.
Of course, I’ve seen plenty of examples of high-spec double-deckers before which are no less impressive, but I can confirm that the Enviro400s are outfitted to as high a standard as the operator and its partners claim.
An enduring service
Steve Wickers, Managing Director of First Eastern Counties, spoke briefly at the launch: “These vehicles are to a Euro VI standard, which will help the emission levels within the city centre.
“We continue in Eastern Counties to invest in public transport. We want the bus to be a preferred method of transport over the car. Yes it’s contentious, but that’s what we need to do to solve the air quality and congestion issues we face.
“It is exciting to see how technology, design and innovation can be used to transform bus travel and these new vehicles will certainly set a new benchmark in interurban bus travel, in terms of comfort, access, connectivity and design, combined with the current highest environmental standard.”
Steve then handed over to his Marketing Manager, David Jordan, and Commercial Manager, Paul Martin, who provided more details on the new development.
David began: “The current vehicles we’ve got on the route are six years old. This doesn’t sound like much in the scheme of things, but because the route is so long – about 85 miles each way – the buses rack up mileage very quickly. It’s more than double what the rest of the fleet does travelling around the city of Norwich. We find we need to change them every five-six years to give them less arduous work to do.
Paul said: “The buses we’re launching today are the eighth generation of vehicle on the route, which started off as part of the Eastline network. What is now Excel is almost exactly what started as Eastline 794. There have been changes over the years, but to a greater extent, the service we have today is the service we had 40 years ago. The other Eastline services have long been broken up into separate routes.
“Previous vehicles on the route have ranged from double-decker buses with so-called coach seats – they were fine unless you travelled on them for more than an hour – several generations of coaches, through to the high-specification double-deckers which are currently on the service and due to be replaced.”
David continued: “The vehicles on Excel at the moment were the first real step-change we made in terms of the customer offering. The previous incarnation of Volvo B9s were effectively just a bus with high-back seats. When we moved to the current ADL Enviro400s, we were clear that we wanted to raise the benchmark. Those had proper coach seating, air chill, next-stop announcements and so on. In that intervening period, it’s clear that the rest of the industry has caught up with that level of specification or surpassed it. While we weren’t trying to innovate or do anything new with this new set of vehicles, we had to raise the bar higher still.
Paul said: “We were lucky to work with ADL and Scania as our two major suppliers, who were more than willing to come on the journey with us. We did end up innovating on the way, as we did test a number of different types of vehicle on the route before we placed an order. The combination of Scania chassis and ADL body – most specifically the ADL City body, making these the first vehicles with this body and chassis combination anywhere in the UK – gives us what was on our wishlist.”
David added: “That wishlist was built up by visiting a lot of operators across the country and sampling their services. We looked at Stagecoach Gold, Reading Buses, Yorkshire Coastliner and Harrogate Bus Company’s number 36 service. There was an exploration to see what was out there, what worked and to utilise it on Excel.”
Paul concluded: “Our aim was to bring together the best and most appropriate specification for Excel.”
View from the top
First UK Bus Managing Director, Giles Fearnley, also attended the launch. He commented: “This is a service we are very proud of. It’s amazing how many times the vehicles have been refreshed over the years. We’ve been able to do that each time because passenger numbers have continued to grow.
“There is no question that there will be another worthwhile increase in passenger numbers over the next few months, particularly because we’ll be introducing some much faster services between Norwich and Dereham, Swaffam and Kings Lynn. We’re responding to customer demand and making the service even more successful. It will be great if in a few months time we will be knocking on the doors of ADL and Scania to say we need a few more vehicles.
“As a business, we’re proud of everything that goes on through First Eastern Counties in Norfolk. We’ve got a great team who have the customer at the forefront of their thinking, and that really does show in terms of patronage, feedback and the feel of the whole business. My thanks to everyone involved in this.
“The bus is playing an ever more important part in the city and people’s lives. Here in Norwich and Norfolk, we work closely with the County Council and City Council to tackle clean air, and we’re working with them on the Transforming Cities bid, where huge sums of money could potentially be available in the city to improve the lot of the bus passenger. Should that come through, there will be much more fleet investment over the next couple of years in the city.”
Giles also thanked the drivers and support staff based in Kings Lynn, who he said do an amazing job supporting the service.
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