New Bus for Kernow

With the well documented difficulties that Cornwall Council is having with funding essential public transport in the county, it is nice to see them 'thinking outside the box' and coming up with a workable solution. Starting with the next round of tenders which are due to be announced very shortly the council will be supplying a fleet of vehicles for operators to lease. The initial batch will be based on Iveco chassis, but other manufacturers vehicles will be available at a later date. It is the bodywork which has been designed for Cornwall to meet the requirements laid down by the council.

Ironically the catalyst for the project was the oft heard complaint that bus cuts were leaving passengers prisoners in their own homes. The council soon realised that they could exploit a loophole in European legislation by re-designating all passengers as prisoners, thus negating the need to be fully low floor, and also benefitting from other tax breaks which makes the whole operation a lot cheaper to run.

Initially the vehicles will be expected to remain in white livery, but operators will be able to display their own fleet names on the sides. The council have not ruled out allowing companies to paint the buses in their own liveries, especially if future tenders are awarded for longer periods as planned.

The prototype has been out and about on testing runs over the last few days. The 'bus' is expected to be re-registered KZ11401 before entering service, in a specially reserved batch of numbers KZ11401- 11600 in an agreement with the DVLA in the same scheme that Transport for London have taken advantage of for their own NBfL fleet.

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