This LEZ programme has given First Bus the proverbial boot up the backside in terms of its fleet. First in general have been lazy with their fleet renewal in recent years let alone just First Glasgow. The ex-London stock should never have come to a huge city like Glasgow after being battered on the routes they were on. Buses weren’t refurbished and if they were not very well. We went back to the early 00s uncomfortable seating on most of the Tridents. Busy routes that could have prospered are still receiving the oldest stock there is. The 61/60 are still running with 53 plate ALX400s, older B7TLs and quite often 51 plates.
Perhaps once the target is met they’ll consider not getting into this mess again...
It wasn't laziness that got them into the mess with fleet replacement. It was a couple of things that also link into your other points.
Under Lockhead, they got obsessed with being the biggest player. That meant going round gobbling up various businesses at not the best price, borrowing to fund this and also spending money putting them right. That was bad enough with smaller businesses but then came the Laidlaw purchase that has proved to be the millstone around the proverbial neck! They borrowed massively to fund that purchase and that constrained the ability for the core bus business to invest in fleet.
Not only that, they were also constrained by their London businesses that demanded investment to fund the fleet to meet the tender requirements - hence why you see so few provincial deliveries between 2009 and 2013. The double whammy was that London also meant you had tender losses etc where you would have fleet that was still on the books (in terms of depreciation) that needed to be deployed.
Glasgow has some pronounced parallels with Bristol which was similarly afflicted so that after some Eclipses and Geminis in 2009 (to meet a quality partnership), there were only 12 Eclipses received until Dec 2012 and that for the airport service. The only upside was that Bristol avoided receiving London Tridents (though did get a large batch of B7 Geminis) though some other ex London tat did arrive with Marshall and Plaxton Darts, Lance SLFs.
Hopefully, Glasgow will continue to follow Bristol in receiving a much improved fleet, having much brighter targeted branding, and that leads to improved passenger figures.
