![\"Tristan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/10968478_10153103429229170_5734686124475806354_n.jpg\")
<\/p>\n“The ambience on board behind the driver bends to his whim”<\/p>\n
Chief Reporter for Bristol Live\/Bristol Post
\nSouth Bristol-based, also with a particular interest in the city’s housing crisis.\n<\/p>\n
![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_TCBR080825DiscoBusBRI_03jpeg.jpg\")
On board the new electric buses in Bristol(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n
The two older gentlemen turned to me with grins and eyes wide with child-like wonder. \u201cBlimey,\u201d said one. \u201cAre we supposed to be having a disco?\u201d \u201cNah,” the other one said, “I reckon we\u2019re on a spaceship. When we go up the hill at Bedminster Down, we\u2019ll take off,\u201d he laughed. \u201cYes!\u201d the first exclaimed. \u201cIt\u2019s a rocket, not a bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of us were, remarkably, on one of the new double decker buses after dark heading into South Bristol for the first time. We\u2019d all been on the new buses before, but never after dark, and if you\u2019ve not done that either, do it – it\u2019s quite the experience.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d got on as strangers at The Centre and settled down. As we approached Bedminster Bridge and headed south of the river, things started to change. The bus\u2019s regular, boring, internal lights went dark, apart from the now bright neon strips of fluorescent light all around the ceiling. As the new passengers got on opposite Asda and settled down, the lights changed – from bright, deep, soul-piercing blue, to red. Then changed again to green. It was like going home in one of those sensory rooms for special needs children.<\/p>\n
For a community that\u2019s been used to rattling, noisy, dirty and smelly buses for a generation, this was palpably exciting for the people of South Bristol on this late night excursion. It doesn\u2019t take much for a conversation involving pretty much the entire bus to start as you roll down the Malago Road, but the changing lights were guaranteed to be the talk of the bus.<\/p>\n
When the man who runs the buses, the metro mayor and a junior transport minister went to Hengrove bus depot in South Bristol back in early June<\/a> to make a big announcement about electric buses, it didn\u2019t quite create the wave of enthusiasm and joy across Bedminster, Hartcliffe, Knowle and Bishopsworth that they perhaps hoped for. That was probably because the buses weren\u2019t yet on the roads.<\/p>\n Now they are. And, blimey, are they something to behold. The fleet of new electric buses was launched gradually. First, a few arrived, and now it\u2019s pretty much all of them. But because they were launched in the height of summer, only a few people have seen them in their full glory – after about 10pm when it\u2019s properly dark outside.<\/p>\n I got on one the other night and the lights were bright green. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s randomly generated, or set at the start, or the driver can change the lighting while he\u2019s driving – the ambience on board behind him bending to his whim. Maybe I am easily pleased with a childlike sense of awe and wonder. Maybe my tongue is in my cheek, but it is now a pleasure to ride on a bus in South Bristol, whereas before the best you could hope for was that it was a chore.<\/p>\n READ MORE: \u00a390m investment to make half of Bristol’s buses electric<\/a>READ MORE: Minister backs Bristol bus franchising and will ‘engage’ on mass transit<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been on some where one or more of the regular white lights stays on, but the buses of South Bristol – and north of course too, these buses go off into Horfield and Filton – are best experienced when the driver goes full George Lucas, dims the lights and just relies on neon colour to show the way.<\/p>\n It is, people may say, a remarkable turnaround for me to write a love letter to Bristol\u2019s buses. Even though I am on them a lot, and a passionate advocate of more and better public transport, anyone who follows me on social media will know I rant a lot about how rubbish Bristol\u2019s buses are. Or have been.<\/p>\n Obviously, it\u2019s no good having great buses if they don\u2019t actually turn up – and that is still happening – but here we are, with me telling you how much I love the new buses. Let me count the ways.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the lights, oh no. The design of them is great, outside and in. The surprised eye headlights and front make them look like joyful, cartoon buses, especially as the entire headlight winks orange when they indicate.<\/p>\n Inside, they are quiet and clean and new and shiny and feel a lot more spacious. Having buggy or disabled bays on both sides makes them feel wider.<\/p>\n They run smooth. Don\u2019t underestimate how big a deal this is for people in South Bristol, who have been thrown around and jolted back and forth for years on buses where sometimes the engine underneath you was clanking around and making worrying noises.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_BRI_PG_030625electric-124.jpg\")
(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_TCBR080825DiscoBusBRI_02jpeg.jpg\")
On board the new electric buses in Bristol(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n
![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_TCBR080825DiscoBusBRI_04jpeg.jpg\")
On board the new electric buses in Bristol(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n