It appears that even the scottish parliament this week are not happy with First Glasgow despite all there new purchases, given that they have not bid to use 2018/19 funding for retrofits, why not though? Is 40% of the total retrofit cost per fit which is likely what first would be offered given the company size.
Even more odd is the fact that nearly £8m was allocated to help bus firms retrofit there vehicles yet only £1,06m has been awarded to firms, including lothian, west coast motor, stagecoach western & xPlore DD.
The BEAR phase 2 allowed operators to also ask for retrofits not just for exhausts but eFan systems and other applications designed to improve reliability and fuel consumption?
Its clearly became a state where First feels its unfair at not gaining 100% funding on every application yet it gains 100% funding in england(so jarvis has said online), personally doing the maths, if first had bid for funding for roughly 160 of there enviro 300’s to start with it would cost approx £15000 per vehicle for a retrofit with baumot, eminox or even HJS, asking for 40% funding would mean bidding for roughly £6000 per vehicle, meaning First would have to fund roughly £9000 per vehicle for a new exhaust system, that £9000 cost is where first are definitely stalling on retrofits by the looks of it, £9000 x 160 vehicles is just over £1.4m in fitment cost off of Firsts own back.
There is of course long term maintenance costs for such systems such as DPF cleaning and AdBlue consumption potentially being a-little higher that before, but surely not being compliant means LEZ charges would soon out-way “not” retrofitting vehicles never mind the political backlash that that first would avoid if it had been retrofitting much earlier than not doing it as of yet.
On the grand scheme of them spending an apparent £100m on there new fleet, £1.4m is a relatively small cost to keep there vehicles relevant.