· Big buses still falling, down 22% to 2,377 for the rolling year to July.
· Coaches, down 2.8% to 1,093 for the rolling year to July, just below 2006 level.
· Only midibuses buck the trend, up 41.4% since January.
“The medium to long-term outlook for the big bus sector is bleak, with orders below optimum fleet replacement levels,” said Christopher Macgowan, SMMT chief executive. “July’s figures are skewed by rescheduled deliveries to some customers and by summer shut downs. Separately, coaches are also down for the rolling year, though deliveries of some unexpected orders have rescued the registrations for the month, taking the figure up nearly 300% to 116. Once again, this shows the danger of drawing conclusions from an individual month’s data.”
