The demands put on a bus fleet operating in compliance with passenger transport bodies and emission limiting guidelines was revealed by McGill’s Buses at a lecture in Ayrshire.
With a service provision that runs through the west central Scotland region, McGill’s smaller local route vehicles cover an estimated 75,000 kms and the larger express vehicles 100,000 kms, the audience heard.
Ralph Roberts, McGill's Managing Director, told the audience how the engineering team adhere to a strict 28-day inspection cycle and oil change policy that simplifies the routine maintenance schedule. A preventative maintenance policy was introduced to avoid unplanned downtime and keep costs under control.
All routine and specialist repairs are carried out in-house by experienced technicians which keeps vehicle downtime and turnaround visit to a minimum. The specification of the vehicles has evolved as the team refine the optimum vehicle and configuration for specific duty cycles. This information is used when new vehicles or routes are introduced into McGill’s operations.
It owns a fleet mostly containing ADL vehicles, complimented by Mercedes, Optare, Volvo and Scania. The recently purchased fleet of Mercedes ULEVs were built to McGill’s specifications.
Ralph said: “The Mercedes vehicles have been very reliable and are well received by our drivers.”
McGill’s aims to provide 95% passenger timetable compliance, monitored independently, with financial penalties for non-compliance.