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Homes | News | Features Yellow Fever set to Spread? With the large number of changes to school transport across the region, Wrexham Council can no longer claim to be the only authority to operate innovative yellow school buses... as this report on Conwy, Flintshire, Denbighshire and Gwynedd shows... Wrexham Council introduced its yellow school bus project in June 2002. It remains the largest scheme of its type in Britain when you consider the proportion of contracts operated. A recent Department for Transport-sponsored report claims that the scheme is a success. For details of the Wrexham scheme, click here. Conwy Council stepped into the arena from 3 November with the introduction on its behalf by Alpine of the first of three refurbished Duple 425s. To the untrained eye, these vehicles appear new. The vehicle has been repanelled, seen new running gear and refitted internally by JWS Starcruiser . The opportunity was taken to upseat the vehicle to 70 passengers. And, of course, it is painted yellow. It is believed to cost about 40 per cent of a new Scolabus 24. The vehicle's daily duty is from Llanfair Talhaiarn to Ysgol y Creuddyn, Llandudno. The following two vehicles, when delivered, are expected to see service in the Conwy Valley and at Llanrwst. Alpine is also expecting a brand new delivery for use under contract to Conwy between Kinmel Bay and Abergele school, before working to Coleg Llandrillo. These changes follow a Conwy cabinet decision to upgrade all school services over the next four years. Meanwhile, Alpine has painted four of its existing Olympian double deck deck fleets in yellow, with a fifth in the pipeline... This is something that has been adopted by Flintshire Council this autumn. Its first yellow painted bus is operated to Mold Campus by P & O Lloyd of Bagillt. It is an ex-Stagecoach Leyland Olympian double deck and is one of three to be so treated by the firm. Townlynx is also to introduce a similar ex-Stagecoach Olympian in yellow. The aim of Flintshire's scheme is to raise the profile of school transport, ensure that the vehicles are as visible as possible and introduce such features as CCTV. Denbighshire Council is the first authority in Wales to operate its own vehicle on school transport. It uses a brand new 70 seat Scolarbus 24 on a run from Llandegla/Bryneglwys to Ruthin. It has considerable private hire commitments between school runs. Details of Denbighshire's scheme are available here together with comment from trade journal RouteONE, published 13 November 2003. Finally, Gwynedd Council reports that Nefyn Coaches has recently significantly refurbished and repanelled a Bedford dating from 1980. The Gwynedd contract upon which this 10m vehicle works is constrained by road widths. It has "three and two" seating. |
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