Surely anybody out and about our towns and cities, even those with no interest in buses, must have noticed the Optare Solo (the tonka toy bus with no back window). Why are there so many of them? I presume mainly because they have proved themselves to be cost effective, but partly because there is little else available in the low floor midibus market.

That has now changed with the recent introducton of the Wrights Streetlite. Wrights claim, compared to the Solo, to have produced a lighter vehicle which seats three or four more in equivalent lengths than its competitor. I hope there will enough knee room! Looking at the seating diagrams it looks as if the Streetlite makes better use of passenger space on top of the rear engine.

Look HERE for details of the Streetlite. The tabs allow you to see the seating layouts and a comparison with the Solo, amongst other things.

For a web pamphlet on the Solo CLICK.

Mistral have the exclusive contract to sell Streetlite's to small companies and have ordered 60 in anticipation of sales. Mistral website HERE.

The manufacturer Wrights of Ballymena, Northern Ireland, deals with fleet sales and upon launch at the end of June 2010 sold 12 Streetlites to Isle of Man Transport. For Wright's website CLICK.

This article from the Belfast Telegraph tells of the launch of the Streetlite and reflects on the state of the new bus market CLICK.

Now back to the Streetlite. Unlike the Solo it does have a rear window. Also on longer wheelbase versions there is an option for the door to be in front of the front wheels (DF Door Forward), though the shorter ones have, like the Solo, the door behind the front wheels (WF Wheel Forward).

Wrights claim low maintenance costs because of thoughtful touches such as headlamps and top mounted wipers away from the normal crash impact zone. The engine, gearbox, exhaust etc. are fitted to a "demountable skid" to ease maintenance and repair.

Various 4 and 6 cylinder versions of the well proven Cummins iSBe Euro 5 compliant are fitted (requiring AdBlue) coupled with a Voith gearbox with integral retarder.

The Streetlite is certainly a stylish vehicle. Of course, it is reliability and low long term costs which will make it successful. May the best bus win!

The photographs below have been provided by Wrights of Ballymena who have kindly allowed us to publish them here.