In March and April 2023, the Volvo BZL demonstrator BV72 KPG visited Winchester as part of its tour around the UK demonstrating the model to potential operators.
Winchester City Council have stated interest in replacing the current ADL E200 MMCs on the Park and Ride services around Winchester and the BZL is one of the options. The BZL was also a good test to see how well a modern electric bus works around Winchester.
This isn't the first time an electric bus has been used in Winchester, Stagecoach had at least one Designline Olympus electric bus on trial in 2005.
The BZL is a very smooth and quiet bus and does not roll side to side over the bumps in the road. The bus does lean a bit more into sharper corners than the exisitng E200s such as the turn at Westgate or at the end of Winchester Broadway.
When travelling up the steep hill of Romsey Road towards the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, there were no difficulties pulling away from stops. This is was a strange experience as the existing fleet have to reach a very high RPM to be able to pull away.
The exterior is painted metallic blue and the dot matrix displays use white LEDs rather than orange. The doors sound like they are electronically controlled rather the the E200s which sound like they have air controlled doors. The emergency door is also further forward on the BZL than the E200s which have the door directly infront of the rear axle.
The capacity plaque lists:
| Seating | 42 | 39 | 39 |
| Standing | 33 | 32 | 36 |
| Wheelchair | - | 1 | - |
The seats on this demonstrator were fabric covered rather than leather or moquette. The seats were also firmer than the seats that are found on the Park and Ride specification E200s. If the BZL is selected, the seats will almost certainly be a completely different specification.
There is a single seat on each side in front of the front axle with a wheelchair space behind the offside front axle. This space has three tip down seats that are covered in fabric on underside.
The other side begins the traditional airline style seating that continues all the way back to the rear axle. The existing Park and Ride E200s and other similar vehicles feature a few tip down seats on the driver's side behind the front axle as well however this BZL does not.
Behind the rear axle, the demonstrator features a single table on each side with two seats facing back and two facing forwards. The final row of seats is five seats accross the back, exactly the same as E200s and other vehicles.
The seats feature large grab handles for the gangway and however unlike other types of bus, the grab poles only go halfway back along. This means that from this point to the back of the bus, the stop request buttons are fitted into the backs of the seats. The only problem with this is that seats are a bit closer together than on E200s and on some seats it is possible to press the button by accident.
Every seat back has a USB port and a wireless chargeing pad. The tables have a pair of wireless charging pads in the center as well as a cup holder on each side at the window end. As the tables are made from hard plastic, depending on your phone case material, a sharp turn may result in your phone moving off the charging pad location.
The windows down the side of the vehicle are similar to the windows that are found on the E200s. There are four opening windows at the top towards the front of the bus. This allows for some ventalation inside and there are also small air conditioning vents in advertising panels above the windows.
The rear window is as large as it can reasonably be. It extends below the top of the rear row of seats and wraps around the rear dot matrix display.
On this vehicle, some of the windows feature large "GO ELECTRIC WITH VOLVO" branding. As this is a demonstrator, this is to be expected and hopefully wouldn't appear on any in fleet vehicles.
The lighting is quite a bit different to anything I have seen on a bus before. The ceiling contains two pairs of LED strips either side of the gangway. The outer strip of each pair faces out to the windows and is a soft white and the inner strip is blue and faces up into the ceiling. On one the days I was travelling, the drivers side white strip didn't appear to be working but there is a strip there.
Some buses in the past have used a blue light in the first fixture behind the entry way. This is so there is some illumination but the light isn't a bright object in the driver's peripheral vision. The lighting on the BZL takes this using a softer blue light while driving to the extreme.
On some journeys the white lights were turned off so there was just the blue light but these were during the day when the lights would be off anyway.
Above the entrance, there is a space for a square screen to be fitted similar to one of the options on the recent variants of the E200 MMC. This was either not fitted on this demonstrator or not turned on as there was never anything displayed.
There was also no sign of a traditional red "bus stopping" lightbox so this must either have not been fitted or this functionallity is handled by the screen. When a stop request is made, an audible, but not too loud, single tone beep/buzz is made. It would be nice to have a proper bell sound, even if it is electronic. Maybe this is an option for the operator to pick what sound they would like to use.
In the advertising panels there are speakers fitted so audio announcements could be made, like those found on the existing Park and Ride fleet. There were no audio announcements during my journeys but, just like the screen, I would not expect that to be configured for a few week long trial.
The accessability of the vehicle appears to be on par with other buses such as the E200. In its current specification the wheelchair space might not be quite as accessable as the seats on the otherside limit turning space. However, an operators specification would likely be able to replace those seats with tip up seats.
One benefit to the airline style seats all the way to the front axle on the driver's side is that the priority seats are much closer to the door.
As Winchester City Council operate the Park and Ride with Stagecoach contracted to operate the buses, a fleet of BZLs is a possible option. Stagecoach already operate a number of BZLs in Scotland so this model of bus would not be new to Stagecoach but would be a microfleet within Stagecoach South.
The E200 MMCs that are in Park and Ride specification are already a microfleet in Winchester as they are SN16xxx/26xxx vehicles and are fitted with air conditioning. Other E200 MMCs at Winchester are YX65xxx/37xxx and do not feature an air conditioning unit on the roof. Basingstoke, Portsmouth and Chichester operate a number of 26xxx E200 MMCs that are in a similar specification to the Winchester Park and Ride vehicles. The Park and Ride vehicles in Winchester feature very little Stagecoach branding on their interiors, for example, the seats are dark blue rather than light blue and orange. This arrangment would likely continue with the new fleet for the Park and Ride and this would allow for an easier move to a non ADL bus, as it does not need to fit with Stagecoach's other fleets.
The closest alternative at the time of the trial is the electric E200 MMC, like those found on the Glide Park and Ride system in Guildford. This would allow for an electric fleet in Winchester but keep the uniformity of the Enviro family of buses.
Hopefully the BZL is a successful model of bus in the wider industry, even if it is not the selected model for the Winchester Park and Ride. Depending on ADLs future dedicated electric bus models, rather than an electric variant of the E200 MMC, the BZL could be a challenger to ADLs dominance within the UK bus operators.
