A further 14 Yutong electric buses have just entered service with McGill’s to enhance the passenger experience in Inverclyde, with recent public launches in Port Glasgow and Greenock. Richard Walter finds out from CEO Ralph Roberts why Yutong is his current vehicle manufacturer of choice
McGill’s Buses took two deliveries of Yutong E12 buses, one of 22 and a second of 33 in 2021 ahead of the COP 26 summit held in Glasgow. These were branded Switch for services 23, 26 and 38. The third batch, which is now being delivered from Pelican Bus & Coach, the Castleford-based Yutong dealership, will bring another 41 zero-emission buses into the company as part of a £20m project to further decarbonise the fleet. Ten of the 10.9m E10 buses are branded for Greenock to Upper Port Glasgow services 531, 532 and 532 whilst four 12.7m E12s are destined for Greenock to Burns Square, Larkfield service 517.
Public launches for the E10 buses took place at Coronation Park, Port Glasgow, on Friday 24 February and for the E12 buses at Clyde Square, Greenock, on Tuesday 28 February. I spoke with Ralph Roberts, CEO of McGill’s Buses, at the Port Glasgow event and asked him what made the Yutong electrics stand out from the others.
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“Well there’s an awful lot involved,” explained Ralph. “I’m a chartered engineer by profession so I maybe look at a vehicle in a different way to others, with construction more in mind than aesthetics. I’m more interested in the use, purpose and durability of the vehicle and its ease of maintenance than the outright look of it. There’s absolutely no doubt that there are other products out there. I think that these E10s look fabulous but some might think that others look better. I would concede to that but it’s all in the eye of the beholder. For me these Yutong buses are the best engineering solution.
“One of these buses is the 134,000th electric bus off the production line and another one, which by happy coincidence is from the same batch, is the 180,000th new fuelled bus – hydrogen and electric – so there is a long track record of building these. There are a sizeable number of vehicles out there with proven feedback to the factory for modifications leading to a product that is profoundly reliable. In the last year of operation, we have found that we don’t experience breakdowns and buses only ever come off the road for their 28-day service. We have found a solid vehicle in the Yutong product which has turned out to be extremely reliable. So for me it’s function over form and not form over function.”
Batch differences
I asked what differences there had been with the deliveries. “You can see the main difference between the first and second batch by the seats,” said Ralph. “The first batch of 22 featured tartan moquette and orange headrests. However in order to get the second batch delivered in time for COP 26 we had to concede that these seats, which were made in the UK, had too long a lead time. So we chose an alternative for the second batch and actually we were really happy with them and so have fitted similar ones to the new batch. In terms of lengths, most are 12.7m long. There are only 10 of the E10s, which are 10.9m long, which will be used on the Port Glasgow routes. The reason these are shorter is because they have to operate into housing estates and schemes where there are lots of parked cars so 12-metre buses would not be appropriate. These new E10s are the same length and width as the company’s existing ADL Enviro200 MMCs so won’t present a problem.
“All the remaining forthcoming vehicles will be E12s. We have a lot of confidence in them now. If there is a PVR requirement for 10 buses, we actually buy 10 buses where ordinarily I would have said we had better buy 11 to allow for maintenance and repair. But you don’t need the spares with Yutong. The only time that you would need spares would be if there was an RTA and a vehicle was off the road for body damage repair. The maintenance on the Yutongs is so simple and can be done in evenings and at weekends without the PVR being down. We have a large number of Mercedes-Benz Citaros in the fleet where there is a commonality of parts – steering and suspension – with the Yutong buses which has helped to adopt them into the fleet.”
Future electric plans
Ralph explained some of the challenges in planning future services. “Here in Inverclyde there is a real parking problem,” he explained. “However it’s a problem not unique to Inverclyde. What is different is that we operate a local bus service to the Upper Ports unlike many other places that no longer offer such services. We recognise that two thirds of passengers are in the low income bracket so they need the bus. As a result we are continuing to invest in providing services as we appreciate that many people don’t have any alternatives to travelling by bus. But we do still need action on parking in order to bring more buses down into Inverclyde and to invest more in electrics.”
Inverclyde is built on a hill, and McGill’s Buses is interested in the results of trialling a new smaller Yutong E9 zero-emission vehicle which promises to be highly manoeuvrable in both rural and urban applications. “We might consider the E9 and see what it is like up in the housing estates and see if it’s going to be small enough to do the job,” said Ralph. “The eventual plan is to spread the electrics out as we renew the fleet.”
Bringing fleets up to date
Before the electric buses entered service, the McGill’s Buses average fleet age was around 4.8 years old. “When the new buses go in,” explained Ralph, “the fleet age is going to plummet down to around 3.6 years which is a very young fleet. There are still 64, 66, 67, 19 and 69-plates on the road but the sheer number of the new electrics will bring that age down. We probably won’t need to buy any new buses for Scotland West for the next two or three years or so, which is good as we have to focus our efforts over in the east in terms of fleet. There are 41 new vehicles coming in which will allow 45 to be cascaded over to McGill’s Scotland East (formally First Scotland East) which we see as two different businesses – Eastern Scottish and Midland Bluebird. Actually three because Bright Bus Tours is a separate business. Then we have 20 refurbished 62-plate former London ‘deckers being reconfigured to single door just now and going into the paint shop for Scotland East. So that will be 65 vehicles in total arriving between 1 March and the middle of April. That’s on top of 11-plate Wrightbus Eclipse Gemini Volvo B7TLs and 65 plate ADL Enviro200MMCs transferred from Xplore Dundee. There will be something like 90 vehicles introduced into what was First Scotland East since last September. The fleet over there will completely change and be a lot younger than it was at the point of takeover of the business last year. The depot at Bannockburn had an average vehicle age of 15 years and Larbert was 13. The youngest fleet was at Livingston with an average age of 10.9 years. That depot came with a number of Wrightbus Streetlites which we hope to continue to operate for another three or four years. We are spending a lot of time and money on bringing the fleet up to our standards to get them to where they need to be. So that’s the plan, and there will be more buses to go into Dundee.”
Partnerships and funding
Ralph pointed out that McGill’s Buses is working in a partnership with Kleanbus Energy and other companies to look at how it can get an electric double decker to do a full day’s work. He explained: “Our Yutong single-decks are out on the road from 5am to 1am and come back with around 15-18% of charge. Some can be even higher with 30% of charge so they are really good on batteries. However the Xplore Dundee BYD ADL Enviro400EV electrics were struggling during the cold spell last Christmas and were using up to nearly 40% of their battery capacity trying to keep the bus warm. There will be chargers at all of our depots eventually. If there is another round of SULEBS (Scottish Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme) funding, we will look at buying electric buses for Scotland East and will apply for funding for putting in chargers at Larbert and Bannockburn depots, and maybe Livingston as well.
“The Government pays 75% towards the charging infrastructure. It’s a fabulous scheme and I want to take advantage of it while I can. However we are not intending to be greedy with it and have contacted haulage and logistics operators, the Scottish Ambulance Service, Royal Mail and the Police who are all going along the electrification route too and might wish to access our chargers. There are truck operators whose drivers could drop in part way through a day and use our rest facilities, make their lunch and even have a shower if they wished whilst their vehicle has an ultra fast charge, and then continue to do the second stint of their shift. We have had a very good response from haulage and logistic operators and I’ve been giving them contacts for other bus operators. I would like to agree through the CPT that there is a need to have the equivalent of the old red book setting out
the existing charging infrastructure so that haulage and bus and coach can come together to share a network of bus depots where chargers are not used during the day. Cars are a totally different issue due to safety issues on premises but if we can build in an area where we can let the public in to charge without wandering about the depot, we will definitely do that. The tax payer is paying for three quarters of that infrastructure and therefore we want to give something back by letting people use it to get the carbonisation dividend moving.”
Ralph added: “The Kleanbus consortium will also be looking at alternatives to fuel batteries such as using either pantographs at bus stops or terminal points and bus stations and possibly inductive charging points at bus stops. The report will be finished by the middle of March and we will then see if the Government is willing to pay funding towards it and produce a vehicle to do a trial. We need to cut down our reliance on batteries which will make a real difference to the environment.”
Product satisfaction
Ralph considers that Yutong is a very helpful company to work with in terms of quality and customer satisfaction. As an example he explained that when asked for modifications to the pilot bus, as he wasn’t happy with the destination layout, Yutong had drawings made up and mock ups done ready for sign off within 24 hours. “I couldn’t believe it.” he said. “We also worked closely with Ian Downie, Head of Yutong UK at Pelican Bus & Coach, to ensure that the first and second batch of electric buses were in service by the start of COP 26. The only choke points experienced were the supply of the types of seats we wanted for the second batch and a requirement for having Chinese USBs fitted but these issues were resolved to ensure the buses arrived on time.”
Ralph concluded: “It’s been an exciting and interesting journey. We are however having to learn a lot more about the energy markets and electricity supply, and sometimes it catches you by surprise like the standing charge – not the actual electricity that you use – for our three depots that are currently electrified which stands at £9,000 a week.”
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