Bristol's Buses 2020
A good deal has happened since the independent
transport videos cameras last paid a visit to Bristol in the summer of
2018. The principal operator in the city
is First West of England. In 2020 First
have introduced a new look to the buses in Bristol. Route branding is changing from the
simplified First livery with coloured fronts denoting the route to an overall
colour scheme – a different colour for each route or group of routes and
branded as ‘Citylines’. At the same time
a fleet of 77 ADL Enviro400CBG City double-deckers have been introduced with
biogas-fuelled Scania N280UD chassis.
They carry the new route liveries and are seen on this programme. You will also see the buses on the rebranded
Bath-Bristol service. Now called ‘Aquae’
the ADL Enviro400 MMC bodied Scania N250UD double-deckers carry a smart
two-tone blue livery. We also see the
‘Metrobus’ buses in action. The M1
service (grey and pink livery) is operated by the HCT Group trading as Bristol
Community Transport, M2 (grey and orange) & M3 (grey and green) are
operated by First West of England. At
the time of filming, Firstbus 39489 is in a grey and red livery as a spare
vehicle. If you have watched our
previous programme you will have seen the very first ‘Metrobus’ buses operating
the initial free service that was used to introduce the new ‘Metrobus’ network.
Our programme begins in Bristol city centre
where our cameras capture the colourful action for you to enjoy. We film in over fourteen different locations
including Broad Quay, College Green, Park Street, St Augustine’s Parade,
Colston Avenue, The Haymarket and St James Barton. Virtually all types of buses in the First
West of England fleet are seen passing our cameras. We also see some DAF/Optare Spectra double-deckers
on the 349 service from Brislington the city centre operated by local independent
Abus, and New Adventure Travel Mercedes Citaro buses on the X7 service that
runs between Bristol and Chepstow in south Wales. A Stagecoach ‘Falcon’ coach is also
filmed passing through the Centre on its long journey to Plymouth in
Devon. The ‘excel’ branded buses are
operated from First’s Weston-super-Mare depot for routes serving north
Somerset.
In the second part of this
visit to Bristol we move to north Bristol and begin filming at Canford Lane in
Westbury-on-Trym. Here we catch up with
Stagecoach West vehicles that operate a handful of local and contract services
in this area of Bristol. From here we
move to Patchway, which is the location of the large out-of-town shopping
centre that is situated off Cribbs Causeway. Known as ‘The Mall’ it has a very busy bus
station. Here buses pass through and
terminate giving the bus enthusiast a great variety of buses to enjoy. Amongst the buses filmed are many of the new
‘biogas’ buses now in service as well as the ‘Metrobus’ M1 service that runs to
Hengrove Park from here. We also see
Stagecoach West buses passing through as well as New Adventure Travel Citaros
on the X7 service heading to both Bristol and south Wales. Our filming takes place on Pegasus Road and
Lysander Road that is adjacent to The Mall bus station giving us great
photographic opportunities.