Nottingham City Transport (NCT) has brought down the curtain on the last in a line of high seating capacity buses in its operational fleet with withdrawal of the final Scania OmniDekka models after service on Saturday 30 May.
The first of those were delivered in 2003. Between then and when production stopped in 2011, the municipal bought 174 examples. Most were replaced with Scania Alexander Dennis Enviro400 and Enviro400CBG models between 2013 and 2022, but a small number had been retained for Nottingham Trent University intercampus route 4.
Navy Line 48 between Nottingham city centre and Clifton was the first service to use the OmniDekkas in 2003. The operator thus marked their retirement by turning out the last examples on that same route on 30 May. It estimates that the 174 buses covered in the region of 75 million miles during their careers in Nottingham.
A final journey departed from the city centre at 1915hrs, returning at 1944hrs to bring down the curtain on the OmniDekka in passenger-carrying employment with Nottingham City Transport.
Six remain in the fleet as driver training vehicles, while more continue in service with other operators elsewhere, where their capacity – up to 90 seated passengers on two axles in earlier models – has proved attractive for home-to-school use.
Among those is Tiger European of Nottingham. As part of the last day celebrations, it turned out an OmniDekka that was new to NCT as a 90-seater in 2005 to shadow some workings.
Speaking about the final day, NCT Head of Marketing Anthony Carver-Smith says: “After 23 years, it is the end of an era for Nottingham City Transport as we say farewell to the Scania OmniDekka in front line service.
“These buses were some of our first wheelchair accessible double-deckers, as well as the first to have audio next-stop announcements. They were a significant upgrade when introduced, and started NCT’s journey of specifying quality buses that put customer needs first, which continues to this day as we embark on the electrification of double-decks.”
