School buses should only be up to 7 years older than senior school passengers as a rule of thumb.
School buses expire like we all do and to still be running 25 y.o buses is unacceptable.
In your opinion?
You're entitled to your opinion.
I disagree with it. I'll explain why.
There's
nothing wrong in operating an older vehicle on low mileage work 39 weeks a year. Provided you maintain it properly. Between 21/35 days buses and coaches receive an inspection in a workshop. That inspection covers every item that's tested on the annual MOT. The minimum period for safety inspections a traffic commissioner accepts is 6 weeks (around 35 days). So, between every 21 to 35 days a bus/coach receives a safety inspection to MOT standard. Should anything be found then the vehicle has that issue resolved before it's returned to service.
I see very few bus/coach operators called up for failing to maintain their vehicles to a roadworthy standard. So, we can assume from that either the industry regulator isn't very good at their job, the operators are extremely clever at avoiding detection, or more simply there's not many instances where vehicles are in operation that are 'unsafe'. You can be spot checked anytime by a DVSA examiner, by the local traffic police. A lot of vehicles get spot checked. I've been spot checked in my bus on my school run. Often. I'm not surprised at that - I'm driving school children in a bus. We wouldn't want to be operating an unsafe vehicle. I wouldn't want to go out in one. Nothing's ever been found on a vehicle I've driven. Perhaps I'm fortunate?
Transdev Blazefield happen to work for the same local authority as my current employer. They have a lot of school buses, so do a lot of work for that authority and the one next door. And continue to do so. They have their own inspectors who will spot check vehicles used on their contracts. Randomly - that way we're not going to know they're coming. Should anything be found they don't accept as part of their contract terms, that vehicle is off the contract. Potentially, so would be the operator! Whilst Transdev Blazefield might have their 'issues' running dodgy old buses isn't on that list of issues. I could point out that the 2015/7 Wright bodied Volvo B5TLs which work the Coastliner and the 36 are the ones which are getting into midlife and having constant engine issues. No surprise as it's a small engine mated to a big turbo to generate the power needed. See also Wright Streetlite/Streetdeck. Small engine overworking, and failing quicker. I don't like Streetlites, might have mentioned that elsewhere.
The likes of Johnson Bros in Worksop run a very nice fleet of coaches. Some are quite expensive and modern. Alongside that they operate a number of double deckers on school contracts. Around 14 years ago they decided to replace their Bristol VR school buses (newest of which would have been 27/8 years old and becoming hard to get spare parts for) with Olympians. Leyland Olympians not Volvos - the latter are infamous for their use of recycled steel, so the rot is present at build. They've had shorter working lives than their Leyland parents have because of this.
Whilst Johnsons have leapt into the low floor revolution with lots of mid 2000s Scania Omnidekkas from Nottingham there still remains a lot of Leyland Olympians on the fleet, working contracts. I think the newest of those would be L registered and last off the production line in mid 1993. They have been owned since 16 years of age. They've had as long out of the vehicles as their age when purchased.
A horrible 'old' bus.... but one that works 39 weeks a year, twice a day and is properly maintained in their fairly substantial workshop facilities. I haven't heard of Johnsons visiting the traffic commissioners for poor maintenance practices, so can only assume they must be properly looking after their fleet. I've never seen an untidy one on my travels. If you operate old vehicles, you're going to get attention from DVSA, so obviously you properly maintain the buses because you know they're getting stopped.
A lot of coach operators have front line vehicles (like bus firms) and then a pool of older ones which work school contracts. They can be between 10-15+ years old. They're doing fairly low mileages and could be sent out on a nice private hire job if needs be when things become hectic.
So, age isn't the issue. The real issue is how those vehicles are maintained. Maintain them properly and they'll run for a very long time. You can have a badly maintained 7 year old bus/coach that's going to be in the scrapyard a lot sooner and you can have a vehicle of that age in dire need of an external repaint, seats needing retrimming. The customer doesn't like a shabby vehicle. They want something comfortable, reliable and which will turn up when the timetable says it will.
That could be a 20 year old Wright bodied Volvo for all they care. I'm going to stop jumping up and down now as the mods will end up chopping this post if I keep going....
