Euro 6 engines only allowed in Greater Manchester from next May

[knutstransport]

RE: Euro 6 engines only allowed in Greater Manchester from next May

(22/06/2021 06:20)NorthernCounties Wrote:  Its all fairly easy to sort out on the bus front, especially with the euro 6 retrofit program going on funded by tfgm

Some who apparently represents the bus industry was on North West Tonight yesterday and he said there may be a shortage of qualified fitters given the number of engines that would need to be retrofitted and the time frame.

Quote:People like rothwells in Heywood and elite over cheadle have a fairly old fleets and its doubtful they could find the several hundred thousand pounds to upgrade their fleets. The new healings/Roberts travel have only been running a short time and there's no way his reserves will be good enough to fund a euro 6 coach yet.

Could perhaps the worst affected operators be those outside Greater Manchester? Say you're a coach hire company in Stafford, you probably won't get subsides from either the Birmingham or Manchester schemes (unless they are being made available nationwide) but you might get enquires about private hire work to both destinations in Greater Manchester and Birmingham. Imagine a coach hire company saying they can run a school trip to Waterworld or Chester Zoo but if the request is for Cadbury World or the MOSI then they have to say no.

Could also make some RRB requests interesting. For example, a Warrington area operator having a suitable vehicle for Warrington-Chester services but not for Warrington-Manchester services.