[GB] Battle of Preston - Part 1

It all started when Stagecoach started running a duplicated service on two of Preston Bus' thunk routes. The battle ground includes:

11 Preston Bus Station - Gamull Lane
16 Preston Bus Station - Farrington Park

Meanwhile, the order of battle:

Preston Bus

Route 11:

The main haunt of this service are 7 Scania N94UB entered service last year:


Preston Bus 205, Scania N94UB/East Lancs Esteem, Preston (Jul 2007)

On weekdays, this service operate up every 5 mins, and is backed up with Olympians and Lynxs. Since knowing Stagecoach are to step in, Preston Bus quickly took a number of new Optare Solos to beef up the service, including this one:


Preston Bus 95, Optare Solo M920, Preston (Jul 2007)

Route 16:

The service was mainly operated with Lynxs and Olympians before Stagecoach challenges:


Preston Bus 218, Leyland Lynx LX2R11C15Z4R, Preston (Jul 2007)

But like the 11, new Solos are drafted in to bring low floor buses to the service:


Preston Bus 92, Optare Solo M920, Preston (Jul 2007)

Stagecoach

Route 11:

Stagecoach has two weapons against Preston Bus, one is brand new Solos employed on the 11, and run up to every 10 mins:


Stagecoach Lancashire 47474, Optare Solo M850, Preston (Jul 2007)

The other weapon is beefing up the service 2/2A, which runs in parallel with the 11, and some nearly new Enviro 400s are transferred in from Newcastle to operate the service every 10 mins as well:


Stagecoach Lancashire 19031, AD Trident SFD43G/AD Enviro 400, Preston (Jun 2007)

Route 16:

like the 11, Stagecoach has brought in Solos, mainly existing ones, to operate the duplicate service every 10 mins from Mon-Sat only:



Like Stagecoach of old, they undercut Preston Bus' single fare and day ticket price by a fair margin and rebrand the service as the "Preston citi" network. To say the least, it has turned both the 11 and 16 to a serious battleground. However, so far it doesn't seem that Preston Bus have lost much business as their buses are just as busy as before.

It will be interesting to see how this turn out, and I will return with Part 2 in 2 weeks time.

[ 本帖最後由 NV58 於 2007-7-9 20:23 編輯 ]

I m suprise the Lynx still got all of its skirts trim retained, is very rare