US based Allied Speciality Vehicles (ASV) has taken over Thor Industries’ bus building business for £65.1m/$100m in cash. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed by 1 November 2013. Thor’s combined bus business is one of the largest producers of transit and shuttle buses in North America, with […]
An 11.7m Optare Versa that has just joined the fleet of New Zealand operator, Reesby Buses, is expected to generate significant savings. Owner Dave Reesby said, ‘With a gross weight of only 12 tonnes for a 44 seater city bus, compared with around 14 tonnes for all other makes operating in the country, the 11.7m […]
TfL has announced the shortlisted bidders for the contract to supply fare collection to the London transport network. They are: Cubic Transportation Systems Ltd, LG CNS Co CNF and Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH. The winner will be named by October 2014, with the new contract commencing from August 2015 upon the expiry of TfL’s current […]
Volvo Bus Latin America has sold 200 hybrid buses to the Public Transportation System of Bogota, the capital of Colombia. The buses will be operating the city’s BRT system, TransMilemio. Their chassis will be manufactured in Volvo Buses’ plant in Curitiba, Brazil. The buyers are Consorcio Express, acquiring 156 vehicles and GMovil, acquiring 44 vehicles. […]
Stagecoach founder, Sir Brian Souter, has made another investment. Following recent disposals, his Souter Investments business has taken a significant minority stake in the Lonsdale Capital Partners led acquisition of Irish school publishing business CJ Fallon.
Cardiff Bus has recently employed a Lady GaGa impersonator, Donna Marie, in a publicity stunt. The singer was seen popping into Cardiff Bus’ customer service centre to top up an iff card, before catching the number six bus to Cardiff Bay. The ploy was to help promote the operator’s express service to Cardiff Bay to […]
First Manchester Ltd, a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of FirstGroup, has agreed to acquire the Manchester bus business from Finglands Coachways Ltd for a consideration of £50,000. Finglands became a subsidiary of the East Yorkshire Motor Services (EYMS) Group in 1992 and runs a number of commercial bus services and school contracts to the south […]
Go-Ahead has reached the milestone of generating over £1m in revenue with its mobile phone fare payment scheme, m-ticketing, in less than 12 months. The service enables passengers to instantly pay for and download tickets through their smart phones. To date Go-Ahead has recorded 65,000 of these transactions. It was first trialled at Go North […]