Operating an Optare

The Go-Ahead group have recently been trailing an Optare Versa at their various subsidiaries  with the latest stop along its route being at Plymouth Citybus. She is being used for evaluation at various locations to see whether the vehicle type is something that they would consider operating full time in the future. The vehicle has so far only been used at Go North East, within which she has operated for the past 5 months, with her now expected to be used in Plymouth for the coming 2 months before her next move. This would be an interesting turn away from the group's usual buying policy of heavyweight vehicles, which in recent times have mainly consisted of Volvo B7RLEs, Mercedes Citaros and Scania OmniCitys. Operating such buses does of course come at a cost, and undoubtedly the group are looking to save money on fuel, especially considering such vehicles as the Citaro can rarely achieve above 3-4mpg. My apologies for the poor photography, the sun was awful for taking photos of it in that position!