Low-floor Bus - United Kingdom

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, because of the colloquialism of "buggy" for push chairs, low floor buses are often called buggy buses.

The Dennis Dart SLF (Super Low Floor) marked the wholesale introduction of single-deck low floor buses in the United Kingdom in 1995, after many small scale demonstrator usages. Low floor buses were rapidly introduced on high profile routes, notably becoming a requirement for London Buses contracts. The Optare Solo introduced in 1997 marked another step change with inroads into smaller usages traditionally served by minibuses. The final phase came with low floor double-deckers the Dennis Trident 2 and Volvo B7TL entering the mass market, even though they were introduced after the Optare Spectra.

Due to the deregulated nature of the public transport system in the UK, adoption of the higher cost low floor buses was usually in conjunction with some sort of grant or quality partnership with a local authority, as the profitability of many routes was not high enough to justify conversion based purely on increased revenue. It has been reported however that adoption of so-called Easy Access buses does have a positive effect of ridership and revenue levels.

Under the Transport Act 1985 the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) (or commonly DiPTAC) was established to provide independent consultation on accessibility issues. In the same year, the first low floor bus specification was drafted by DPTAC. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 provided for the completion of the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000, which specified that all new public service vehicles over 22 seats should be low floor from 31 December 2000, with smaller vehicles mandated from 1 January 2005. The 2000 regulations do not require retro-fitting of pre-existing vehicles or the enforced sale of non compliant existing vehicles, allowing operators to retain a high floor vehicle until "the end of their economic life". In reality, as the prevalence of low floor buses spreads, combined with grants/incentives, it is likely that the prevalence of high floor vehicles in the national fleet will markedly reduce before many of the last high floor buses reach their feasible end of life, of a 2000 registered bus. In the past, in times of reduced economic investment, it was not uncommon for service buses to be used for 15 to 20 years.

While some coaches have been produced with a small front low floor section at the driver's level, most coaches in the UK are being made accessible through the use of wheelchair lifts, with the 2005 Caetano Levante being one of the largest introductions.

While another widely stated benefit of low floor buses is quicker boarding for able-bodied passengers due to the lack of steps, studies have found the opposite effect in the UK. This is apparently due to the prevailing system of operation where passengers enter and exit through one single front door. It has been suggested that the previous 1980s/90s high floor step entrance buses which featured a centre rail, encouraged a bi-directional flow of entering and exiting passengers simultaneously. The removal of the pole to allow wheelchair/buggy access created the situation where the quintessentially polite British bus passenger would wait for all passengers to alight before boarding, leading to an increase in dwell times.