UK BUS SUMMIT 2020
day penalty. Non compliant taxis and private hire vehicles will pay £7.50 a day from the same date, and non-compliant vans will pay £7.50 a day from 2023. Commenting on the decision to exclude cars, Transport for Greater Manchester said “the inclusion of cars would also impact on more deprived communities, for whom the cost of upgrading to a newer, cleaner vehicle isn’t a viable option”. Onebus, which represents private bus operators in Greater Manchester, labelled the £100 a day levy a “bus passenger tax”.
public transport. The on-demand service was proposed to run from 6.30am to 9.30pm, seven days a week and use eight fully accessiible 14-seat Mercedes-Benz Cityline Sprinter low floor minibuses. Each is equipped with free Wi-Fi and USB charging points. M A RCH AUTOMATED VE HICL ES
STAGECOACH TRIALS UK’S FIRST AUTONOMOUS BUS In February, Transport for London announced plans to trial of a DRT minibus network
DRT
TFL ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR SUTTON DRT TRIAL Transport for London announced plans to launch a year- long trial of a demand-responsive minibus network in Sutton, south London from May. TfL launched a four-week consultation into the plans in February and said the new service would let people or groups use an app to book seats on a minibus that would stop at more convenient locations, including areas not currently served by
The UK’s first full-sized autonomous bus began a trial in a Manchester bus depot in March, in a partnership between Alexander Dennis, Stagecoach and Fusion Processing
The UK’s first full-sized autonomous bus began a trial in a Manchester bus depot in March. The ground-breaking project, involving a single Alexander Dennis (ADL) Enviro200 vehicle, is part of a programme being delivered by transport operator Stagecoach in partnership with ADL and technology company Fusion Processing. The bus is now able to operate autonomously within Stagecoach Manchester’s Sharston depot using Fusion Processing’s CAVstar autonomous vehicle system. This system was previously successfully used in the Greenwich autonomous vehicle trials in 2018 as well as a number of other similar projects. The trials have reached the point where the bus can now move around the depot environment autonomously, carrying out simulated movements such as parking and moving into the bus wash. This hardware and software also forms the basis for a more significant autonomous vehicle trial due to get underway in 2020. That will see five buses operating in autonomous mode in public service between Fife and Edinburgh, across the Forth Road Bridge Corridor as part of the CAVForth project. PASSENGERS
ALMOST NINE IN TEN BUS PASSENGERS SATISFIED
First Bus completed the sale of its 163-vehicle Queens Road depot in Manchester to Go-Ahead Group in June, creating Go North West
Almost nine in 10 passengers using buses were satisfied with their last journey according to the
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