Things which cause bus boarding/alighting to be slower now than 40 years ago.

[johncrossley]

I can't remember which programme it was but I recall seeing a TfL revenue check on telly; the entire bus was held up while this was carried out, so how does this cut dwell times?

On this occasion it makes things worse, but this will be a tiny proportion of boardings.

If a passenger has the exact fare and knows which fare they need, a ticket can be issued almost as quickly as someone tapping on with a card. Card readers aren't infallible anyway - concession cards are the biggest source of delays, in my experience.

If you are talking about the Scottish system, then I agree those cards are slow. In London they are touched on the reader just like any other card and are just as quick as normal Oyster cards. Cards from outside London are just shown to the driver.

Yes, as usual you're ignoring the population who live outwith the larger conurbations; many people live in smaller towns where having more than one door is simply unnecessary.

What is a sufficiently large urban area to justify two door buses, and faster dwell time measures in general? At present, in England we are drawing the line at London and Brighton, which I think many people on here think is too narrow. Where one draws the line is another matter of debate which I doubt there will be any consensus on this thread. At a minimum, I would include all metropolitan areas (as defined by the 1974 boundary changes), plus many larger cites outside that. I would include (as a rough guide) places like Nottingham, Bristol, Leicester, Bournemouth/Poole, Southampton and Portsmouth, plus their general hinterland. I would also include smaller but economically important towns/cities like Oxford, Reading and Cambridge. This would probably cover around half the English population.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

What is a sufficiently large urban area to justify two door buses, and faster dwell time measures in general? At present, in England we are drawing the line at London and Brighton, which I think many people on here think is too narrow. Where one draws the line is another matter of debate which I doubt there will be any consensus on this thread. At a minimum, I would include all metropolitan areas (as defined by the 1974 boundary changes), plus many larger cites outside that. I would include (as a rough guide) places like Nottingham, Bristol, Leicester, Bournemouth/Poole, Southampton and Portsmouth, plus their general hinterland. I would also include smaller but economically important towns/cities like Oxford, Reading and Cambridge. This would probably cover around half the English population.

I don't think you've grasped what @GusB was saying.

You mention Brighton so we'll head there. First of all, whilst many of their city fleet is dual door, they also have a large number of single door vehicles for their country work (aka Regency and Coaster routes). Having those as dual door vehicles would be folly as they have longer journey durations, requiring more seats, and experience fewer entrance/egress conflicts. It is exactly the sort of distinction that @GusB was alluding to and that you ignore.

Moreover, B&H only gone for dual door having had the benefit of extensive bus priority being introduced across the city. The other areas have lesser levels of bus priority and sorting that is a far, far more important move than the seconds saved by having a second door.

 

[Whisky Papa]

I do think GM ought to be getting into dual-door territory.

Up to now the Oxford Road corridor has clearly been an exception. Having a dedicated dual door fleet among otherwise single door buses would have created inefficiencies, and indeed re-conversion costs once buses were to be redeployed.

Think back to the bus-war days, operators were using the cheapest buses they could find. Did Stagecoach remove the centre door from the ex-Hong Kong buses? My recollection is not. This suggests there was no ideology on the number of doors, they just did what was the most pragmatic for the bottom line.

UK North did not remove the centre doors on some of their ex-London Olympians, and they were allocated at random alongside their single-door siblings - including on GMPTE school services where I suspect they were non-compliant.

In my driving experience (2003-5), I don't think it made much difference in all honesty, probably slightly faster unloading at the University or Piccadilly (or school!) using both doors, but nothing much in the overall journey time. Obviously if two-door buses were universal on the route, passengers might be more disciplined in using them as intended, but I'm not 100% convinced it is the answer for Wilmslow Road, let alone 5-door artics, no matter how well they work elsewhere.

Perhaps worth pointing out that with £2 weekly tickets available, many passengers held those and boarding could be relatively speedy. Unfortunately, they all had to be sold on-bus in the first place, and Monday mornings were fraught - I was often taking in £100 of my own money to provide change for those with £20 notes. If some or all of these transactions could have been shifted off-bus it would have been a bigger help, and of course that is now possible with mobile tickets, etc.

 

[NCT]

Trent Barton never did weekly tickets. Their Frio (13 tickets) was very effective at preventing the Monday scrum.

 

[JonasB]

What is a sufficiently large urban area to justify two door buses, and faster dwell time measures in general?

That is a good question. Here is one of the local buses in Enköping (town population ~27000).

8600

8600

www.bussmicke.se

 

[NCT]

In the days the ZF Ecomat gearbox ruled there was a simple test for whether a bys service was likely to be journey time competitive. If the road conditions allowed it to routinely scream into kickdown then the answer was usually yes. If not any talk about the number of doors would have been a waste of time.

 

[brightonbususe]

Sorry if already mentioned, but one thing I've noticed is that - in Brighton at least - a lot of stops now no longer are separated with lettered stands and are now just one big 'mega stop' served by all routes. The one by the Pavillion is extremely long and with so many buses coming and going at the same time, quite often people have to walk 3 or more bus lengths to board which is a long way for less-mobile passengers (and spare a thought for blind people who will have no idea where to wait). I guess it's just because it's more space efficient and probably stops getting blocked, but it does seem to slow loading.

 

[The exile]

That is a good question. Here is one of the local buses in Enköping (town population ~27000).

8600

8600

www.bussmicke.se

I’m not aware of ever having travelled on a single-door bus in Germany. I can think of a few occasions where only the driver’s door has been available for use, though. (I mean in either direction, not the post/8pm entry only by driver’s door)

 

[johncrossley]

I’m not aware of ever having travelled on a single-door bus in Germany. I can think of a few occasions where only the driver’s door has been available for use, though. (I mean in either direction, not the post/8pm entry only by driver’s door)

Sometimes they are reluctant to open the driver's door and so most people end up using the other doors.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I’m not aware of ever having travelled on a single-door bus in Germany. I can think of a few occasions where only the driver’s door has been available for use, though. (I mean in either direction, not the post/8pm entry only by driver’s door)

I don't have a reference for this but I was of the impression that in Germany a second door was legally required on a service bus regardless of its size. Certainly there are some ridiculous cases, e.g. the old 12ish seat Blankeneser Bergziege (Blankenese mountain goat) minibuses in Hamburg which had a rear door and clearly didn't actually need one.

My personal view would be that anything of Optare Solo or below sort of size doesn't really benefit from one, but that full size single deckers and all double deckers do because of the passenger volumes, though only when on routes where many stops have both boarding and alighting, not so much on "suburb to bus station" type routes where you never get both at the same stop in significant numbers.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I’m not aware of ever having travelled on a single-door bus in Germany. I can think of a few occasions where only the driver’s door has been available for use, though. (I mean in either direction, not the post/8pm entry only by driver’s door)

Curiously, I have in Italy (despite it also being the location of the crazy PisaMover short bus with almost as many doors as seats - joke ) and also in Slovenia.

My personal view would be that anything of Optare Solo or below sort of size doesn't really benefit from one, but that full size single deckers and all double deckers do because of the passenger volumes, though only when on routes where many stops have both boarding and alighting, not so much on "suburb to bus station" type routes where you never get both at the same stop in significant numbers.

If I look out of the office window where I am... bus from Temple Meads to Broomhill probably would benefit from dual door but a bus from there to Glastonbury... more seats would be better than a second door.

 

[NCT]

In continental Europe there's a tendency of using coaches with two tiny doors for inter-urban / rural routes. The interior is often very tight with no room for circulation or luggage. You can kiss dwell times goodbye every time the driver has to get out and open the luggage hold. The British practice of using low-floor buses (sometimes deckers) with ordinary sized front doors is far preferable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In continental Europe there's a tendency of using coaches with two tiny doors for inter-urban / rural routes. The interior is often very tight with no room for circulation or luggage. You can kiss dwell times goodbye every time the driver has to get out and open the luggage hold. The British practice of using low-floor buses (sometimes deckers) with ordinary sized front doors is far preferable.

The other side of that is that comfort on these services in the UK is woeful - urban buses simply aren't designed for winding rural roads, they are noisy, non air conditioned and rough riding, while to me fitting nice seats is just an exercise in turd-polishing on a vehicle that simply isn't suitable for the role. I have completely stopped using the Oxford-Bedford X5 as a result of this downgrade, it's just purgatory. I used to ride it for pleasure when it was a coach!

I definitely prefer the European style vehicles, dwell is less important if there are only a few stops. I want the coaches back!

My general observation of these services in Germany etc is of them being halfway houses, typically high or partly high floor vehicles but with a wide mid exit door (very similar for instance to what Ember are using in Scotland) - what vehicles do you refer to specifically?

 

[johncrossley]

I definitely prefer the European style vehicles, dwell is less important if there are only a few stops. I want the coaches back!

This is the key point here. Dwell time is infinitely more important on urban routes where you stop every 1 to 2 minutes. Using the Netherlands as an example, they have plenty of long distance routes using coach type vehicles where there is no train line. They use 2 doors but as far as I am aware passengers always bring luggage inside the bus.

There is a particularly comprehensive network in the north east, and there was recent discussion here about the replacement of coaches with Yutong U15s. I was happily surprised in the end.

For the Groningen-Emmen route and all coach services from Groningen. Electrification has started with Yutong U15 buses, which come with a major accessibility improvement as they are low-floor. I know these buses run in other areas of the Netherlands too, but not if they're also used for coach service

I've now been on these Yutong express buses on the 309 Groningen to Assen and 304 Groningen to Drachten and I was very impressed. I originally had reservations because they have replaced a coach with a normal bus, albeit with coach style seats, but it works well in my opinion. Obviously electric means it is quiet and the acceleration is superb, so probably saves a little time compared to the old coaches. This is particularly noticeable on the 304 because it leaves the A7 motorway at several junctions and so needs to accelerate on the slip road to join the A7 again. The Qliner motorway routes in this region are allowed to go at 100 km/h whereas most buses in the Netherlands are restricted to 80 km/h.

So in this case I think the replacement of coaches with buses was overall a good thing. @Bletchleyite I suspect you wouldn't mind these Yutong U15s on the X5!

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The other side of that is that comfort on these services in the UK is woeful - urban buses simply aren't designed for winding rural roads, they are noisy, non air conditioned and rough riding, while to me fitting nice seats is just an exercise in turd-polishing on a vehicle that simply isn't suitable for the role. I have completely stopped using the Oxford-Bedford X5 as a result of this downgrade, it's just purgatory. I used to ride it for pleasure when it was a coach!

That's a very isolated example.

From some recent interurban trips, the idea of high floor coach type vehicles simply wouldn't be preferable given the nature of stops. Perhaps a trip on the Excel across Norfolk, or the 36 in North Yorkshire, is required?

Depends what you mean by "long distance" - if it's a two hour journey duration with lots of shorter, overlapping flows (as you tend to find in England and Wales) then the dwell time on stops is going to kill the speed element. If it's more like Scotland, coaches make much more sense.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps a trip on the Excel across Norfolk, or the 36 in North Yorkshire, is required?

I've done the 36 and it was a prime example of a highly polished turd. The thing was noisy and rattled, bucked and swayed around country lanes, and wasn't at all a relaxing journey as a result. There is only so much fancy seats in a 2+1 formation can do when the underlying vehicle is simply unfit for purpose. Nicer than the X5 which just uses old deckers with urban style seating, but fundamentally not great at the job.

Bus vehicles are simply not suitable for anything other than 20-40mph urban roads, really. They get used more widely primarily because they are cheap.

The Euro style dual purpose vehicles (similar to what Ember use) with at least a partial high floor, good quality air suspension designed for 100km/h running on rougher country roads, aircon and wider doors (two sets) than traditional coaches seem the best type of vehicle for this sort of mixed route in my eyes.

 

[BuhSnarf]

The other side of that is that comfort on these services in the UK is woeful - urban buses simply aren't designed for winding rural roads, they are noisy, non air conditioned and rough riding, while to me fitting nice seats is just an exercise in turd-polishing on a vehicle that simply isn't suitable for the role. I have completely stopped using the Oxford-Bedford X5 as a result of this downgrade, it's just purgatory. I used to ride it for pleasure when it was a coach!

My observations when I've rode the X5 is that very, very few people ride it the full distance. Although, you're right for those that do it's not the most comfortable. I'd argue that if they stuck some ex-Gold seats on there it'd be fine like the X4.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Aug 2026 ==

I've done the 36 and it was a prime example of a highly polished turd. The thing was noisy and rattled, bucked and swayed around country lanes, and wasn't at all a relaxing journey as a result. There is only so much fancy seats in a 2+1 formation can do when the underlying vehicle is simply unfit for purpose. Nicer than the X5 which just uses old deckers with urban style seating, but fundamentally not great at the job.

Bus vehicles are simply not suitable for anything other than 20-40mph urban roads, really. They get used more widely primarily because they are cheap.

The Euro style dual purpose vehicles (similar to what Ember use) with at least a partial high floor, good quality air suspension designed for 100km/h running on rougher country roads, aircon and wider doors (two sets) than traditional coaches seem the best type of vehicle for this sort of mixed route in my eyes.

That's weird as I actually found the 36 a decent ride - except over the awful roads out of Leeds.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My observations when I've rode the X5 is that very, very few people ride it the full distance. Although, you're right for those that do it's not the most comfortable. I'd argue that if they stuck some ex-Gold seats on there it'd be fine like the X4.

It being Gold rather than urban spec would really help, but it bucks and sways too much on the likes of the winding A422 and 4421. Even half an hour is painful, but I certainly wouldn't even consider using it to go to Oxford from MK now. I've tended to use the park and ride, but if I wanted to drink then train via London despite it taking far longer and something like 20 times the price. Roll on East West Rail which I suspect will kill it off (probably not to Buckingham's advantage).

There is the odd National Express coach working, but the timings of those have never lined up with my needs.

 

[duncombec]

I’m not aware of ever having travelled on a single-door bus in Germany. I can think of a few occasions where only the driver’s door has been available for use, though. (I mean in either direction, not the post/8pm entry only by driver’s door)

I don't have a reference for this but I was of the impression that in Germany a second door was legally required on a service bus regardless of its size. Certainly there are some ridiculous cases, e.g. the old 12ish seat Blankeneser Bergziege (Blankenese mountain goat) minibuses in Hamburg which had a rear door and clearly didn't actually need one.

Isn't this because the second door counts as the emergency exit? After all, it's no different to the UK rules on a second exit, simply that we say ours should be on the offside (unless a second nearside door is fitted, as per London?).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Isn't this because the second door counts as the emergency exit? After all, it's no different to the UK rules on a second exit, simply that we say ours should be on the offside (unless a second nearside door is fitted, as per London?).

I think it may be yes. Usually a roof hatch exit is also present, presumably in case the bus was to tip over onto the side where both doors are.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I've done the 36 and it was a prime example of a highly polished turd. The thing was noisy and rattled, bucked and swayed around country lanes, and wasn't at all a relaxing journey as a result. There is only so much fancy seats in a 2+1 formation can do when the underlying vehicle is simply unfit for purpose. Nicer than the X5 which just uses old deckers with urban style seating, but fundamentally not great at the job.

Country lanes... it's the A61. The fact is the 36 has grown out of all proportion and they couldn't operate it with single deckers, which might explain the swaying. From end to end, it's not even two hours and there's plenty of intermediate stops so it just isn't credible to use such vehicles.

The X5 of old was/is different with very few stops - from memory, aside from the bit between Great Barford and St Neots, it was limited stop.

Bus vehicles are simply not suitable for anything other than 20-40mph urban roads, really. They get used more widely primarily because they are cheap.

They get used because they make sense in terms of low floor access.

The Euro style dual purpose vehicles (similar to what Ember use) with at least a partial high floor, good quality air suspension designed for 100km/h running on rougher country roads, aircon and wider doors (two sets) than traditional coaches seem the best type of vehicle for this sort of mixed route in my eyes.

Different types of service. Even where they are used to provide local bus services e.g. Inverness to Ullapool, the vast majority of passenger boarding is concentrated at the termini and a couple of intermediate locations. I'd suggest that average journey duration is a lot greater too.

 

[Tetchytyke]

You can't have mobile revenue inspections on busy buses (I really don't understand how this supposedly is done on the continent!).

can't remember which programme it was but I recall seeing a TfL revenue check on telly; the entire bus was held up while this was carried out, so how does this cut dwell times?

I've not experienced a TfL bus revenue check for many many years now. But I did experience them fairly frequently on the 73 back in the bendy days. It was a mixed bag as to how they did it, sometimes the bus was held whilst they checked everyone- and the second stop down Tottenham Court Road was always a favoured hunting spot- and sometimes they checked whilst the bus was moving. If they wanted the police with them it tended to be a hold.

Inspectors check tickets whilst the bus is moving on the Belfast Glider. They do too when I've experienced checks in Strasbourg, Berlin, and Hamburg.

If we take an extreme example, a route like Oxford Road in Manchester has buses spending easily 5 to 10 minutes loading at Owens Park* or the Uni at peak times. Indeed a huge long stop was provided at Owens Park specifically to enable multiple buses to do this. If most buses are doing this, this is significantly adding to the peak vehicle requirement of the route and thus massively increasing costs.

Those stops generally have lots of people boarding or alighting, rather than lots of people boarding and alighting at the same time. The Oxford Road corridor works in such a way that once one bus is full it leaves and the next one starts loading.

You could speed things up with bendy-buses and multi-door boarding but it would require significant infrastructure investment. Piccadilly Gardens bus station would be pretty much unusable for bendy-buses. Is it worth it? Belfast Glider cost £100m.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Those stops generally have lots of people boarding or alighting, rather than lots of people boarding and alighting at the same time. The Oxford Road corridor works in such a way that once one bus is full it leaves and the next one starts loading.

Now imagine it loaded those people in a few seconds from a queue like a tram would. It'd be much faster and more efficient.

You could speed things up with bendy-buses and multi-door boarding but it would require significant infrastructure investment. Piccadilly Gardens bus station would be pretty much unusable for bendy-buses. Is it worth it? Belfast Glider cost £100m.

Piccadilly Gardens (from a quick Google aerial view) has at least one stop long enough for two or three deckers, a bendy would fit there fine. Glider is a "fake tram" scheme - just replacing the vehicles and making minor tweaks would be a lot cheaper (and way cheaper than what should go down there, i.e. a street running low floor tram).

 

[johncrossley]

Those stops generally have lots of people boarding or alighting, rather than lots of people boarding and alighting at the same time. The Oxford Road corridor works in such a way that once one bus is full it leaves and the next one starts loading.

This route has multiple places that people are likely to want to go to compared to an average "town to estate" bus, meaning more chance of getting on and off at the same stop. Even Londoners have heard of the "Curry Mile", for example. But when you have crazy loadings end to end then you can justify a bendy bus on that traffic alone. Look at the well known Utrecht university/hospital route. Compared to the Oxford Road route, there is very little of interest along the way. So by that argument, no point having more than one door. But in actual fact, even regular bendy buses were not considered enough. It used to run with 25 metre long, 3 part bendy buses.

You can see the frequencies on this (old) Wiki page and pictures of the old 3 part bendy buses:

Lijn 12 Utrecht, CS Jaarbeurszijde - De Uithof WKZ - OV in Nederland Wiki

​

Frequenties
Spits	6-30x/uur
Spits (vakantie)	8x/uur (hoogzomer, kerst)
Dal	12-30x/uur

(spits = peak, dal = off-peak)

At university kicking out time, a 3 part bendy bus would fill up in seconds and off it went. I just can't imagine how long that would have taken with double deckers, checking everyone's ticket and selling some tickets.

This route was replaced by a tram a few years ago.

 

[NCT]

The other side of that is that comfort on these services in the UK is woeful - urban buses simply aren't designed for winding rural roads, they are noisy, non air conditioned and rough riding, while to me fitting nice seats is just an exercise in turd-polishing on a vehicle that simply isn't suitable for the role. I have completely stopped using the Oxford-Bedford X5 as a result of this downgrade, it's just purgatory. I used to ride it for pleasure when it was a coach!

These are to do with specification, build quality and maintenance, nothing intrinsically bus vs coach.

I definitely prefer the European style vehicles, dwell is less important if there are only a few stops. I want the coaches back!

Ha! How the goalpost shifts when the ‘Europe good UK bad’ hegemony is threatened.

My general observation of these services in Germany etc is of them being halfway houses, typically high or partly high floor vehicles but with a wide mid exit door (very similar for instance to what Ember are using in Scotland) - what vehicles do you refer to specifically?

Things operating on Huelva - Ayamonte, Vigo - El Ferrol and Riva del Garda - Rovereto. Some motorway running but all stops in towns. Tiny centre doors typical on coaches.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Aug 2026 ==

Those stops generally have lots of people boarding or alighting, rather than lots of people boarding and alighting at the same time. The Oxford Road corridor works in such a way that once one bus is full it leaves and the next one starts loading.

You could speed things up with bendy-buses and multi-door boarding but it would require significant infrastructure investment. Piccadilly Gardens bus station would be pretty much unusable for bendy-buses. Is it worth it? Belfast Glider cost £100m.

Precisely. Piccadilly Gardens alone rules out artics.

 

[GusB]

I've done the 36 and it was a prime example of a highly polished turd. The thing was noisy and rattled, bucked and swayed around country lanes, and wasn't at all a relaxing journey as a result. There is only so much fancy seats in a 2+1 formation can do when the underlying vehicle is simply unfit for purpose. Nicer than the X5 which just uses old deckers with urban style seating, but fundamentally not great at the job.

Bus vehicles are simply not suitable for anything other than 20-40mph urban roads, really. They get used more widely primarily because they are cheap.

I'd agree that the likes of the Enviro 200 isn't great for longer journeys on higher-speed roads, but even they (and the E400) can be specced with proper high-backed seating if required.

The Euro style dual purpose vehicles (similar to what Ember use) with at least a partial high floor, good quality air suspension designed for 100km/h running on rougher country roads, aircon and wider doors (two sets) than traditional coaches seem the best type of vehicle for this sort of mixed route in my eyes.

Does Ember actually use the middle doors for alighting passengers? I was under the impression that the only reason they're there is for wheelchair access, since Yutong doesn't have an option to have lifts at the front. Whenever I've used one of Stagecoach's TCe12s, everyone used the front door.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

These are to do with specification, build quality and maintenance, nothing intrinsically bus vs coach.

Exactly. ADL has an unenviable reputation for build quality though the latest iteration of EVs is much better. Wright are better, and Yutong better still.

The reality is that most people don't embark on journeys of more than 30-45 mins and coaches aren't really appropriate.

I'd agree that the likes of the Enviro 200 isn't great for longer journeys on higher-speed roads, but even they (and the E400) can be specced with proper high-backed seating if required.

Very true. I've travelled on the Excel (Norwich to Peterborough) and the e400city vehicles on there are very nicely specified, as were the e400s before them. The issue comes when vehicles aren't specced correctly, like Arriva's 72 plates on the Northumberland routes. Traditionally fitted with high backed seats, Arriva decided standard seats would be fine - not good when a 30 min journey can be the default and is often longer.

 

[NCT]

Bus vehicles are simply not suitable for anything other than 20-40mph urban roads, really. They get used more widely primarily because they are cheap.

You confuse buses with British midi buses.

As far as I’m aware only Britain has this obsession with midi buses. In mainland Europe, urban, inter-urban, low floor and low entry vehicles are on a continuum; they are all on the same modular platform.

Britain had a good run of buying ‘full-size’ European single deckers in the 2000s - Volvo B7s, Scania L94UB and the Citaro in particular. Then for some reason we went back to the E200 (the MMC variety these days).

Double decker chassis are derivatives of full-size single decker low floor chassis. Poor ride quality might be a function of British bodybuilder build quality or suspension stiffness (customisable).

The Scania L94UB/K230UB is a good chassis for inter-urban work. The Nordics use the Omnilink, Scania’s own integral version for precisely that kind of work.

The Wright Solar single door version is probably the best bodywork in the UK. The sloping floor throughout reduces the number of internal steps.

European interurban Omnilinks have two narrow doors which I think is a waste of time. Single door has the added advantage of driver operated wheelchair ramp - far quicker than electronic centre door counterparts.

I’ve just done the 620 between Bad Nieuweschan and Leer. It was operated by a 12-m low entry MAN Lion’s City. The rear section had 3 steps plus a platform for seats. It was driver supervised front door boarding. Most stops had either people getting on or people getting off but both. At the few stops with both happening the driver insisted on waiting for the last person to get off before opening the (single leaf) front door. Two doors were a complete waste of time.

 

[Dwarfer1979]

You confuse buses with British midi buses.

As far as I’m aware only Britain has this obsession with midi buses. In mainland Europe, urban, inter-urban, low floor and low entry vehicles are on a continuum; they are all on the same modular platform.

Britain had a good run of buying ‘full-size’ European single deckers in the 2000s - Volvo B7s, Scania L94UB and the Citaro in particular. Then for some reason we went back to the E200 (the MMC variety these days).

Europe is better funded through state subsidies than the UK so running costs, particularly fuel, are more important to UK operators than Europeans and as such lighter weight options have been better supported. The big break that caused the almost entire switch to lighter weight models was the switch to Euro 6, European manufacturers had to switch immediately as they are working under European rules that mandated Euro 6 whilst the UK government (and this is before Brexit) were very slow to switch the domestic derogations to mandate Euro 6 so UK domestic manufacturers were able to continue supplying Euro 5 models for longer. This then creates, whether cause or effect, the matter that most European manufacturers don't bother to import their heavyweight models into the UK and when they do many put little effort into really pushing the option, Scania have been pretty half-hearted since the switch to Euro 6 (and there was a long period with no bus offering to the UK) whilst MAN gave up before that due to reliability issues and Mercedes have always been a niche product at the top end of the price end, so it is only Volvo left supplying which is actually doing quite well in that end.

Also, for whatever historical customary expectations, British passengers expect a seat and so utilising the large standing allowances of heavy weight chassis is less popular than in Europe where there appears a greater acceptance of such so again the extra strength and weight offered by European heavyweight models.

 

[stevieinselby]

Double decker chassis are derivatives of full-size single decker low floor chassis. Poor ride quality might be a function of British bodybuilder build quality or suspension stiffness (customisable).

Poor ride quality might also be a function of poor road quality!
I don't know what the situation is like in other parts of Europe these days, but my experience of driving in France and Spain in recent years is that their roads are generally maintained to a much better standard than ours. If you've got nice smooth tarmac then the quality of your bus suspension is not going to be tested to the same degree.