Stagecoach London ALX400 door layout

[Silent]

Why did Stagecoach London ALX400's have this door alignment layout other London operators had a different door alignment layout?

Just one window in between both doors

Like a more traditional alignment regarding Low floor double deckers of that generation.

Metroline Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident 2 (TA651 - LK05 GGX) 316

Metroline route 316: Cricklewood, Bus Garage - White City, Bus Station Cricklewood Bus Garage. This working has only happened once, back in January from eight to eleven in the morning as far as the London Vehicle Finder and my memory of tracking it is concerned! The service controllers at...

flic.kr

Was it to do with wheelchair access? Capacity?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Just one window in between both doors

Like a more traditional alignment regarding Low floor double deckers of that generation.

Metroline Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident 2 (TA651 - LK05 GGX) 316

Metroline route 316: Cricklewood, Bus Garage - White City, Bus Station Cricklewood Bus Garage. This working has only happened once, back in January from eight to eleven in the morning as far as the London Vehicle Finder and my memory of tracking it is concerned! The service controllers at...

flic.kr

Was it to do with wheelchair access? Capacity?

I'd imagine that it was so that the exit from the stairs was more directly opposite the centre doors so, whilst in London, it would ease passenger egress. Some other companies had the door further back and so had a centrally located staircase (and a seat/window behind the driver bulkhead).

The reason that Stagecoach may have done this was that they were always aware of the need/potential to cascade vehicles from London into the provinces. Do that and you won't want the centre door (because of the loss of capacity) and therefore, you won't want a centrally located staircase.

 

[Silent]

The seat/window behind the driver seemed like something on only the early b9tl’s and alx400’s around 1998/9. Until the enviro 400. I have to observe if those early models achieved the same result accept I think the wheelchair area was harder to get to and it seems like lower capacity.

 

[37114]

Why did Stagecoach London ALX400's have this door alignment layout other London operators had a different door alignment layout?

Just one window in between both doors

Like a more traditional alignment regarding Low floor double deckers of that generation.

Metroline Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident 2 (TA651 - LK05 GGX) 316

Metroline route 316: Cricklewood, Bus Garage - White City, Bus Station Cricklewood Bus Garage. This working has only happened once, back in January from eight to eleven in the morning as far as the London Vehicle Finder and my memory of tracking it is concerned! The service controllers at...

flic.kr

Was it to do with wheelchair access? Capacity?

To be fair, the Stagecoach arrangement matched the non low floor buses such as Titan and Metrobus as the second door was right behind the front wheel albeit the Titan and Metrobus still had a centre staircase. With the exception of the ridiculous centre long straight staircases fitted to the very early London low floor buses + some Oxford Tridents, most low floor London buses adopted the staircase over the front wheel to maximise accesible seating capacity.