Arriva has today (Friday 19 April 2013) launched a £2million fleet of 16 new 11.7 metre, 44-seat Optare Versa hybrid buses in Southend.
The operator has also put 15 11.1-metre Optare Versas into service at its Gillingham, Kent, depot to upgrade two of its local Medway Mainline services – representing another investment of £1.8million.
The Southend-based Optare buses replace older Dennis Dart SLFs. This is the second significant investment in that network in the past 18 months, the operator having bought 12 Optare Versas in November 2011 at a cost of £1.8million.
As for the Gillingham buses, they bring the amount invested by Arriva in new buses for Medway over the past four and a half years to a total of £5.8million, following five Wi-Fi-equipped buses for the X-Bus 116 service linking Chatham, the universities, Gillingham and Hempstead Valley at the beginning of 2012, 16 new buses for local Medway Mainline routes in the summer of 2009 and eight double-deckers for the 101 to Maidstone in late 2008.
