YELLOW Buses has unveiled the latest phase of a multi-million pound investment in the quality of public transport across the conurbation.

Eight new buses, worth £1.6m, have joined the Bournemouth business as part of a plan to replace its entire double-decker fleet.

And the company has signalled that investment in vehicles will form a key part of its competition with local rival Morebus, which has also spent millions on its fleet in recent years.

Figures published last September showed Poole and Bournemouth as England’s top areas for growth in bus travel. Poole had seen the number of bus journeys per head rise 72 per cent in a decade, while in Bournemouth the figure was 62 per cent.

Andrew Smith, managing director of Bournemouth Transport, showed off the eight new Volvo 6 vehicles, alongside five which had been bought last year and have already been refurbished to bring them up to the company’s specifications.

“We have a plan in which we’re going to replace the whole of our double-decker fleet and bring everything up to a new modern standard. We’re looking forward to doing that over the next five or six years,” he said.

“The eight that we’ve bought this time are over £1.6m. We bought in five last year, which is also over £1m, and the ones we’ve bought last year we’ve refurbished.

“We bought them as stock vehicles and brought them up to the standard of these vehicles in terms of the leather seats and the wood floors, so we could be creating that ambience that the customers want, creating an environment that they can feel comfortable in. They can come upstairs, see the view and enjoy the ride.

“It’s a move on from the old type vehicle where it was really about rickety things getting from A to B.”

Poole-based competitor Morebus spent £4m on new vehicles a decade ago and has since replaced a large part of that fleet.

Mr Smith acknowledged that the competition had helped drive the investment.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for the people of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch that both companies are investing in their business to improve the offer, to improve the public transport in this conurbation,” he said.

He said the £200,000 Volvos represented the latest bus technology. “They’ve got the most fuel economical and environmentally friendly engines we can have,” he said.

“They have lighter weight bodies so they reduce fuel consumption and they’re a much improved vehicle in terms of environmental performance.”

The history of Yellow buses goes back to the beginnings of the tram network in Bournemouth in 1902, with the first buses starting as ‘feeders’ to the tram services in 1906.

Trolleybuses dominated the town’s travel for much of the 20th century before being replaced with diesels over the course of the 1960s.

Bournemouth Transport was sold by Bournemouth Borough Council to Transdev in 2005. In 2011, a merger resulted in the ownership of the company transferring to the international RATP Group.

The company was NAMED Shire Operator of the Year in 2009 and 2010 and won the Route One Large Bus Operator award in 2010.

A GLIMPSE at a vintage Bournemouth Transport vehicle has shown how public transport has changed in the town.

Nick Jackson, who set up his “hobby business” Bear Cross Bus Company, was at the launch of the latest Yellow Buses vehicles, with one of his three preserved Bournemouth Corporation buses.

His 1950 Leyland Titan served in the town for more than two decades.

“I only bought it in September last year. It had been out of since 1972, but it was then passed to what was then Bournemouth Passenger Transport Association,” he said.

After the association’s collection of vintage vehicle was dispersed, it took “many years” for the bus to find its way back to Bournemouth, Mr Jackson said.

He pointed up the huge differences between his vintage vehicle and today’s.

“The major differences were obviously the driver’s completely separate from the passengers. There would have been a conductor,” he said.

“This particular bus, as many did at the time, has two staircases, one at the front and one at the back.

“One of the reasons they had two staircases was that Bournemouth had a fairly elderly population and the general idea was it would speed up the loading – a bit different from London, because that’s more about the volume of passengers. The problems with Bournemouth are more about slow loading and unloading of elderly people.”