I don't think that UK really needs heavyweight buses as most of the space in UK one doored buses is reserved for seaters, not for standeess like in Europe, therefore their capacity is usually much lower and as such the power needed and fuel consumption is much lower. Typical 3 doored, 12m bus in Europe can oficially carry around 100 passengers whereas in the UK this would be around a half of that due to the number of seats.
Not really, most full length singles in the UK are around the 70-80 mark. Also you'll find on many routes in the UK singles will carry standees, especially during peak hours.
10-15 years ago single deckers buses were dominated by B7RLE, L94UB, and Citaros and now lightweight and (not all) rather underpowered buses is now the norm.
The new B8RLE from Plaxton, Wright and MCV numbers are decent but rather low as are the Citaros, VDL/DAF is long gone, Nobody brought any euro 6 K series scania apart from reading buses and same goes to Arriva its euro 6 MAN. It probably explains why Alexander Dennis don't seemed to be bothering making the E300 MMC.
Although i have had Rumours few companies that have been getting fed up with underpowered light weight buses and series of complaints from the drivers, Not sure if thats true.
Companies are much more focused on running costs now as bus services are not as profitable as they once were, as such in many cases it's no longer viable to be buying more expensive less fuel efficient heavy weight buses.
However to run down some issues.
- Citaro: Overpriced for what it is, internal design is not passenger friendly with the much hated rear facing seats.
- B8RLE: Okay product however few operators want MCV bodies and Wright will try and brown envelope you some Streetlites instead.
- K Series: The Euro 5 offering was horrendously gutless, even a 4 cylinder E200 could put them to shame! No relevant (in the UK) body builder sees demand to offer a body.
- MAN: Ruined reputation following endless issues with engines on their previous products.
Truth be told most of the light weight buses on the market these days (with the exception of all Streetlites) will do the exact same job as a full size bus just as good if not better. I was travelling on our 6 cylinder Enviro200MMCs the other day and there was 0 rattles, not even the cab door was rattling. As for performance and comfort, you really wouldn't notice the difference between it and a B8RLE unless you were a hard core clipboard holder. Even then the engine is only slightly smaller than that in the B8RLE and has more cylinders than that in Scania's offering! Travelling on the 12 plate K230UBs the same day and the difference was light night and day, while the E200MMCs happily sat at 50MPH, the K230s were struggling to even get up to 20MPH on flat/downhill sections of road. Even once up to speed they'd loose momentum very easily and the interior layout/design is poor.
To add to that last week i managed to end up with a 08 plate 4 cylinder Enviro200 (Stagecoach 36050) for 90 minutes as a substitute to a Interdeck and if i'm being honest it wasn't all that bad. Despite being 11 years old and a light weight midibus there wasn't that much rattles and it held the road well. The only issue was legroom, however this has much improved on the E200 since then.
