By Paul Reoch

PERTH-BASED transport group Stagecoach yesterday announced an £11 million investment in its coach fleet, with the buses being the biggest in the UK.

The new coaches will be provided for the company’s megabus.com operation, which offers customers low cost travel.

The 45 buses will be made by Volvo and Plaxton and, at 15 metres (49 ft), will be the longest coaches in the UK and the first of their kind to be manufactured in Britain.

Fitted with air-conditioning and toilets, the 63-seat coaches are fully accessible and will have a special lift for wheelchair passengers.

Brian Souter, chief executive of the Stagecoach Group, last night told The Courier, “Megabus.com offers the best value inter-city travel in Britain and this new investment will provide a further step-change in the quality of service we provide our customers.

“The new vehicles will bring our investment in megabus.com to around £18 million in the past 18 months and we see further opportunities to attract more people to low-cost inter-city travel.”

Mr Souter added that megabus.com operates a network of services covering nearly 40 major locations in the UK and carries around two million passengers a year.

The first of the new coaches will be delivered in February with the full order completed by the end of May.

The new investment coincides with the launch of megabus.com’s campaign to urge travellers to dump “gas guzzler” airlines and switch to intercity coach travel to minimise damage to the environment.

Stagecoach compared the environmental performance of megabus.com with low-cost airline easyJet.com on the popular Glasgow-to-London route.

Mr Souter said, “Our survey found that on a per-passenger basis, megabus.com is more than six times more fuel-efficient than easyJet and produces seven times fewer CO2 emissions.

“These figures come at a time when the government is looking closely at the environmental impact of the huge expansion in low-cost air travel.

“Bus and coach travel is the greener way to travel and far less damaging than airlines. Not only is megabus.com easy on the wallet, it is easy on the planet.”

Earlier this year, Stagecoach expanded megabus.com to the United States, with passengers being able to travel on daily non-stop express coach services between Chicago and a number of other mid-west cities for $1.