Hello, and welcome to the Optare Excel News website

Part 1 - studies the Optare Excel nationwide, and abroad.
This site has been created to study the British built Optare Excel low-floor single-decker bus, built between 1995 and 2004.
The attempt is to provide information on all the vehicles built and to provide details on where they are now through the Owner Index - updated once a year in January - now updated for 2010. That section will give you a new index bar on the left with an index there of the current/recent Excel operators.

The Excel News page - updated ***28th MAY 2011*** will keep you up to date with *sales* and other important Excel information not reported in the owner index section.
Speaking of 'sales', a new page has been added which can be used for anyone wishing to promote the sale of their vehicle, or their wish to purchase one, click here for details.

Reference list is one of the most important parts of this site, showing you the original owners of all the Excels and their current owners - also giving you an easy index to track those reregistered vehicles, updated 31st January 2010!
'Lost' Excels is a page which shows the Excels you will no longer find for various reasons (scrapped/exported/reregistered)
SORN/Unlicensed is a page that attempts to keep tabs on vehicles off road for whatever reason, less frequently updated.
Emailing me would be very much appreciated to help the above lists stay up to date.

Photography

Chassis types - L960, L1000, L1070, L1100, L1150, L1180, L1189L, these links do not currently work, these take a long time to update so will only be available when time permits an accurate update.

*Important* - I am not employed within the bus industry and as such the information shown throughout the site is generally from the public domain, though a few operators supply information too, notes used from the DVLA website are not always 100% correct and are used as a guide in some areas, no information shown within this Optare Excel site should be used by any viewer to judge how operators go about their business.

Other:
Blackpool Excel - details of this section provided below.

Part 2 - Blackpool Excel:

This section of the site takes on the challenge of recording in detail the first of many routes in Lancashire to become “LOW FLOOR” and to study one operator's vehicles.
Back in 1996, using a pre production batch of Optare Excels - Blackpool Transport transformed route 44. This site tells the story not only of the buses, but also of the route, the services, and the operations.

Now a part of history, the buses are long gone and the route and its timings have changed, this site will hopefully tell you everything you never thought you wanted to know(!)...

So, why Excel's? As shown in the Blackpool section of the site, the buses featured were the first low floor buses in Lancashire in the country. The final Excel's were built in 2003, and at a build total of 587 they are manageable in size to keep a track of, yet large enough to have spread countrywide to attract enthusiast interest.
It is also interesting to be able to track the movements of a modern bus fleet across the country, a task I have not seen accomplished elsewhere on the internet.

Your help in continuing this would be appreciated, a news page will be added to chart movements of vehicles between companies and to highlight what changes have been made to any of the vast number of pages. You can assist me in reporting any movements or contributing photo's of the vehicles in service etc. You can email me at slc9t9@yahoo.com (copy and paste email address).
Thanks for visiting,
Shaun Courtnage, 2010 Links