Telus Bus

Most telephone service providers have been accused of driving their customers around the bend, but as far as I know Telus is the only one that actually does it with a bus.

This Prévost custom unit touched down in Halifax today - briefly - and I didn't take time to see what was inside, but from outside there are some interesting points.

First Prévost, the Volvo bus subsidiary based in Sainte-Claire-de-Bellechasse, QC makes more than straight highway coaches. It also now produces urban transit buses, and has for many years built custom buses and bus-based RVs (including the US President's ''Ground Force One''). So it wasn't much of a stretch to produce this unit.

It also appears to be fitted with the rooftop diffuser system for its diesel particulate filter system. Prévost was acquired by Volvo in 1995 and in 2008 replaced the traditional Detroit Diesel engines with their own Volvo engines.

Looking between the headlights on the false grille I detected the Keolis Orléans logo, which is also interesting. Orléans, a dominant bus operator in Quebec, was the owner of Acadian Lines from 2004-2012 when they abruptly lost interest in providing bus service east of the New Brunswick border.
That decision coincided with the January 2012 acquisition of Orléans by Keolis, the giant French based transportation operator. Keolis runs trains, buses and trams in 15 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the United States where it operates Boston's MBTA rail service. It is much bigger in Britain and continental Europe where it carries most of its 3.5 billion passengers per year.

Keolis is majority owned by SNCF- the French national rail company at 70%, but is also 30% owned by  the Caisse de dépot et de placement du Québec - the Quebec pension fund. A very big owner of one of the company's smaller subsidiaries.


We haven't seen another Orléans bus here since 2012 (unless it was a charter) so it was a bit of a surprise to turn up this one.

 Here is the same unit October 3, 2013 with a different paint scheme, its extensions retracted, and an Orléans logo-which did not acknowledge the Keolis ownership.


Update:
Passenger side view shows similar pullouts in the stowed position, including the H3 45 designation next to the door.

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