New Lantao Bus
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New Lantao Bus Co.,(1973) Ltd. (新大嶼山巴士(1973)有限公司) is one of the franchised bus companies in Hong Kong.
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[edit] History
New Lantao Bus was formed in 1973 through the combination of 3 bus companies which were operated by the residents of Lantau Island, and became the third franchised bus company on 1 April 1974.
NLB became a subsidiary of Kwoon Chung Bus Holdings Limited in January 1992.
The company's franchise was extended from 1 April 1997 to 31 March 2007.
NLB has association with New World First Bus and New World First Ferry operations.
[edit] Coverage
The major service area of the company is Lantau Island, while it is the only bus company in the southern part of the Island. It now operates 14 regular routes , 3 overnight routes, 1 school-day only route, 1 holiday-only route and 1 special route on Lantau Island, carrying an average of 25,000 passengers daily in 2002.
Most of the routes terminates at Mui Wo and Tung Chung, where there are ferries and MTR respectively to connect the city. Some routes are short routes within the Tung Chung new town.
The holiday route is route 1R, runs from Hung Hom in Kowloon to Ngong Ping for 8 departures on Sundays and public holidays. It is the only route of the company which reachs area out of the Lantau.
Major areas serviced by NLB:
- Mui Wo
- Tung Chung
- Tai O
- Ngong Ping (Po Lin Monastery & Tian Tan Buddha)
- Chek Lap Kok (Hong Kong International Airport)
- Pui O
- Cheung Sha
- Tong Fuk
- Shek Pik
See list of bus routes in Hong Kong for the list of NLB routes.
[edit] Fleet
The current fleet comprises 78 single-deck buses. The single-deck buses operated by New Lantao Bus are mainly Japanese-built Isuzu buses with local bodywork.
New Lantao Bus is the only franchise bus operator in Hong Kong operating Isuzu buses. These buses looks very different from buses operated by other franchise bus operators. They are tailor-made for the rough road conditions on southern part of Lantau Island. Most of the vehicles are like (tourist) coaches rather than the normal buses one would find in a city, except for the newer buses in the Tung Chung new town.
All of them are of high floor design, fitted with very powerful engine. Like most buses in Hong Kong, all of them are fitted with air-conditioning system. The air-conditioning system of most buses in Hong Kong is powered by the main, and the only, engine. But the Isuzu buses of New Lantao Bus are fitted with a second engine, solely for powering the air-conditioner. This can ensure the main engine able to operate on its full power when climbing up extremely steep slopes on southern part of Lantau Island.
Riding on these buses is now more comfortable than 30 years ago, but there are still disadvantages about these buses. Most of the seats are arranged in 3+2 configuration, enabling most of the passengers can find a seat on board. But this also makes the corridor narrow and causing difficulties for passengers to alight the bus, especially in intermediate stops. Also, their high floor design makes the access of wheelchair impossible. They are absolutely not suitable for operating on city bus routes. However, the road conditions on southern part of Lantau Island are too rough and they seemed to be the only possible solution.
After the development of Tung Chung new town in 1998, New Lantao Bus gained operation of an airport bus route A35, connecting Mui Wo in southern part of Lantao Island and the airport in the northern part. New Lantao Bus ordered three specially built Dennis Dart SLF (
) buses from Dennis, England. These buses were fitted with 215hp engine and 6-speed manual transmission, which are very different from the Dennis Darts operating in most part of the world. However, their SLF design was proved to be not suitable to operate in southern part of Lantau Island.
In the mean time, New Lantao Bus also started to operate new bus routes solely serving the northern part of Lantau Island. Isuzu buses, being the main bus model operated by New Lantao Bus at that time, were sent to serve these routes. As the road conditions on the northern part are much better than those on the southern part, the buses can handle these new routes without a single problem mechanically. But their "special" configuration ended up receiving a large number of complaints from the residents, asking New Lantao Bus to send a proper bus on these routes.
New Lantao Bus finally conceded to allocate the Dennis Darts only on the northern part of Lantau Island and ordered some new Isuzu buses to serve the airport route A35. For buses to be used to serve the airport, in order to increase the comfort level, these new Isuzu buses were fitted with luggage racks and the seat configuration was in 2+2, allowing a wider corridor for passenger access. These buses can be seen used on bus route 2 to Ngong Ping and sometimes on route 3M to Tung Chung New Town.
As the number of residents in Tung Chung keep increasing, New Lantao Bus soon found out that the 3 Dennis Darts were not capable to handle the demand of the new routes. New Lantao Bus ordered 9 NL263 () 12-metre single-deck buses from MAN, Germany. Also, it acquired 5 second-hand MAN NL262 () 12-metre single-deck buses from Citybus. Otherwise, a double-deck MAN 24.310 () was borrowed from Kwoon Chung, which serving on route 37 and 38 during the rush hour.
From the middle of March 2006 NLB has now scrapped the last of its Isuzu MT112L buses (ILS45-74) and became a fully air conditioned bus company. These buses will follow the previous model Isuzu MT112K buses (ILS6-44) which were scrapped a year and a half earlier.
