Spending on new buses 'will save on maintenance'
Sunday, 9 February 2020 - Transport
by Adrian Darbyshire - Reporter
Ten new double deckers and six single deckers will be delivered to the island this year.
It’s part of a rolling programme of bus replacement which in 2018-19 cost £400,000.
Isle of Man Transport insists the size of the fleet had fallen from 90 to 68 and buying new buses each year saves on maintenance costs.
A Freedom of Information request in July 2018 revealed that Bus Vannin had spent more than £6.2m on buying new buses since 2016.
By that point Bus Vannin had a fleet of 52 Mercedes buses comprising 33 Citaro single deckers, which cost between £134,490 and £169,100 each, and 19 Sprinter minibuses costing between £56,960 and £86,975 each.
Bus Vannin has been testing a number of demonstrator buses in including a Wrightbus Micro Hybrid that boasts fuel savings of up to 21% and lower carbon dioxide emissions.
Twelve new single deckers were delivered in 2018 and 2019.
Five double deckers had their delivery delayed until this year due to a change of ownership of Wrights, with a further five provisionally ordered for 2020. Technical specifications are yet to be agreed.
Six single deck hybrid vehicles are also expected in 2020, again with technical specification to be agreed.
Orders are confirmed when the technical specifications are agreed and priced. New buses are built to order and prices are not published at the manufacturer’s request.
A spokesman for the Department of Infrastructure said: ’As you will see from the orders and future orders there is a rolling replacement programme in place involving a fleet of just under 70 vehicles which have a life of 8-11 years.
’There are minimum orders with some manufacturers that mean that IoM Transport tends to order six buses a year for single deckers and adds the double deckers when necessary.
’A lot of work was undertaken on the lifetime costs of buses, to explore how efficiencies could be made through a reduction in maintenance.
’Since the department started a rolling replacement programme the fleet has fallen from 90 to 68 and the technical team by four posts.’
The workshop at Bank’s Circus now also maintains 67 minibuses and 12 ambulances. Six minibuses were delivered in 2018 followed by eight in 2019. There are no new ones on order.
’The fleet size has remained constant by improving utilisation, despite the addition of Connect Villages, Connect Ports and patient transfer services to their workload,’ said the spokesman.
In 2018, the DoI declined an FoI request to detail how much it had spent buying new buses, insisting this was commercially sensitive information which would prejudice the interests of its transport services division and Mercedes.
Supplier EvoBus UK Ltd said it pricing information was confidential.
But the DoI was forced to publish the costs following a ruling from the Information Commissioner, who noted: ’Public authorities are expected to be accountable and transparent where considerable expenditure is incurred.
’Improving public awareness of how public money is spent, and the integrity of those expenditure decisions, are drivers of the FoI Act.’
In 2016 two big minibuses and four midis were delivered, followed in 2017 by two single deckers, four midis (delivered in 2018) and also two double decker to replace buses lost in the floods.