Dual Purpose Buses/Coaches

[Justin Tyme]

Stagecoach Gold solos and enviro 300/400s have genuine DP seats i think

Correct - and they are leather seats too.  So have the (non-Gold) Cambridgeshire Busway vehicles.

I agree it's a pity that Dual Purpose seats are rare nowadays.  Two possible reasons could be that (1) there are fewer long-distance bus passengers nowadays - the bus market has gone more local, and (2) longer routes may not be considered profitable enough to justify the investment in luxury seats.

[sconehead85]

Dual purpose vehicles are a creature of an era when bus companies had many long distance coach or express services.  Bus shell DPs would duplicate full coaches at peaks such as summer time school holidays.  These would work bus routes at other times.

The start of National Express 40 years ago was where the DP started to fall from favour with some exceptions.  The end of the New Bus Grant killed off coaches built for occasional bus use.  Then came deregulation in which for the first few years old coaches started to do bus routes until now where there is a form of "apartheid" where old coaches gravitate to private hire and schools rather than normal bus routes.  But again there are exceptions still.

To explain what I mean, Arriva do not have summer coach serviceS from the Midlands to North Wales which Midland Red or PMT used to operate.

sconehead85