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| Pulling in the crowds today in Reading's Broad Street, right outside the Oracle shopping centre |
Today we unveiled our brand new ‘emerald’ buses to the
people of Reading. 16 of the new Enviro 400 MMC double deck buses will hit the
streets of Reading tomorrow, representing a £4m investment and totally transforming
routes 5 & 6 to Northumberland Avenue, Basingstoke Road and Whitley Wood.
The buses will replace a much older fleet of double
deckers (some now 11 years old) and represent the next step in the evolution of
the Reading Buses on-board customer experience. For some time now Reading Buses
has been renowned for providing extra leg room, double wheelchair and buggy
bays and audio visual next stop announcements, all well beyond the statutory norm.
Preserving those important aspects, these vehicles also benefit
from a completely re-designed interior. As well as being further vehicles in the fleet to receive external 'route and destination' audible repeaters, we’ve launched some additional new features:
- New seat trim, designed using inspiration from the latest automotive styles and a colour pallet that reflects our multi coloured route branding
- Lazzerini’s new lightweight, but comfy, ‘ethos’ seats - this high-backed design harnesses technology similar to that used in the aviation industry, weighing nearly 20% less than comparable models (so saving fuel and further improving emissions)
- Neutral modern tones for side walls, window surrounds and ceilings, complementing the now established use of ‘coffee shop style’ two tone wood effect flooring
- 4G superfast Wi-Fi – free for everyone, with a simple ‘tick box’ log on page
- USB phone and tablet charging sockets under each pair of seats
- White crystal LED front destination and number displays
Not only are some of these items a first for Reading but
they are also a first of the UK bus industry. This is the first newly built bus
application of Lazzerini’s ethos seat and we’ve worked with the bus
manufacturer, Alexander Dennis, to harness technology from its Plaxton coach
building division to become their first buses factory built with on-seat USB charging points.
Also featuring the latest 'Euro 6' specification diesel engines
(again, exceeding the current statutory minimum for new vehicles), the emissions of all 14 of the routes
peak bus requirement will be equal to just one of the older vehicles that they
replace!
Understandably the team here at Reading Buses have been really keen to
shout from the roof-tops about these super-stylish buses. Last week we held a
press and stakeholder launch at our depot and got our employees involved by announcing
a ‘five star service’ with each of our ‘stars of the year’ (drivers recognised
for continued great service and going above and beyond) from the past five
years, going right back to the start of the
initiative. So today we’ve had to think even harder about a ‘theme’ and the
clue is in the new route name – Emerald!
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| We're off to see the wizard! The Lion, Dorothy and Scarecrow from Reading Rep Theatre walk the yellow brick road (which was expertly handcrafted by the Reading Buses engineering team)! |
Working with the Reading Repertory Theatre’s studio
team we’ve rolled out a yellow carpet (expertly produced by our engineering
team!) and invited people to our Emerald city. Putting on a grand show, making
lots of noise and grabbing people’s attention so that they come and see for
themselves just how wonderful these buses are and enjoy a suitably themed performance
at the same time which, we hope, they will remember and encourages them to get
on-board! If the audio and visual performances weren’t enough, then handing out
after eight chocolate mints has helped to communicate our ‘buses up to every 8
minutes, turn up and go’ frequency message.
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| Alexander Dennis' new 'quick release' glazing on the E400MMC allows an easy and very effective stage to be created! |
It’s been great to partner with a local arts group for
this launch and we’ve certainly turned lots of heads today by doing something a
bit different. The weather has been kind to us and the unanimous vote from the
hundreds of people that we’ve interacted with is that they really like
the new buses. It’s been huge fun, and a great effort by everybody involved, to
make buses the talk of the town today!
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| Getting in on the act - Thames Valley Police had a stand next to us in the town and got involved in the fun too! |
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