Artic Turns - Part 1

Omnibuses has already made mention of the seeming unpopularity of articulated buses operating on former London Routemaster services. We now ask, is the future bendy? First, let’s look at their history…

Although familiar in Europe, artic buses have taken a long time to reach UK mainstream bus operations. On the continent, where single decks dominate, artics were a natural development, with, for example, 10,000 Mercedes Citaros currently in use. Britain has either remained loyal to the efficient double deck design or chosen midibuses or single decks.

The first use of artics in England was way back in 1977, on several trials. There followed a year later the first right hand drive model, for South Yorkshire PTE and the following year, up to 10 were operating SYPTE free services (SYPTE fares were dirt cheap at that time, anyway). These were either MANs or Leyland-DABs. Fares were charged on SYPTE Cityliners from 1981 but the experiment crumbled, owing to staffing issues.

Ex-SYPTE vehicles began turning up with various operators, for example at Midland Red North, but with limited success. Often popular with passengers (unlike today in London?), they proved to be operationally complex.

Matters then died down a little, till Stagecoach in 1996 used a limited number of next generation artics with either Plaxton or Jonckheere bodywork on Volvo B10Ms, initially on some of its express routes from Glasgow. These were not the first coach artics, however. Parks of Hamilton had ordered a pair of B10Ms with Duple bodywork for Glasgow - London services in the early 1980s but a lane 3 motorway ban for such vehicles effectively put paid to further plans.

Then from 1998 various First subsidiaries (e.g. Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, York) and a small number of others invested in artics, using either B7LA/B10LAs or Scania vehicles with various Wrights bodywork. These were for urban bus services. Mercedes Citaro Artics then began appearing in London, from 2002 but were also delivered to Travel West Midlands (which also operated earlier Mercedes, from 1999).

Numbers, therefore, began growing steadily. But do they have a long-term future? To be continued...