Bus Seats — When Did They Change?

[randyrippley]

Ribble had a batch of C reg ECW Olympians which had individual seats so around 1985-86, and I think they had a couple of X or Y reg ones before that.
Lancaster City Transport had three or four X/Y reg East Lancs Atlanteans with individual coach seats.
LCT also had several of their Alexander Leopards dating back to before 1977 fitted with individual seats.

If you want to really go back, two of Hutchings & Cornelius Dennis Lancets from the late 1950s had individual backrests though I can't remember if the cushions were divided

 

[DickWolf]

In the West Midlands, with the TWM & Coventry fleet, it was for the most part, bench seating, fabric and leather, with some DP MCW Metrobuses having high back seating. Then came the mid 1990s with the influx of the Wright Endurance bodied Volvo B10B. They were, I believe, the first of the buses to be ordered new with the divided seating.

 

[E-Rail]

Stagecoach specified Callow and Maddox Urban 6 Twin seats for their interurban deliveries in the 90s. These were the individual seats with small seperate headrests. They were also found on Yorkshire Coastliner's Volvo Olympian Royales and Southern Vectis deliveries in the 90s too. As mentioned above they made it into the first batch of Manchester Tridents before the 2000 Beachball design launch replaced them, and the bench style seats, with the Pratico twin seats that were specified until recently in all bus deliveries, albeit some had the high back Pratico model fitted for longer distance routes.