Vancouver 2025

The City of Vancouver is a coastal seaport on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Located on the western half of the Burrard Peninsula, Vancouver is bounded to the north by English Bay and the Burrard Inlet and to the south by the Fraser River, and covers an area of 44 square miles. On the western end of the city is the 400-hectare Stanley Park. The city population is 766,296, whilst the greater metro area has in excess of 3m. Much of the city centre is built on a gentle incline from the waterfront and features a mixture of heritage buildings and ultra-modern architecture. Coast Mountain Bus Company, an operating subsidiary of TransLink, provides bus and trolleybus services, operating 1550 conventional buses on 232 routes and 262 trolleybuses on 13 routes. There are thriving convention, visitor and cruise sectors which are catered for by several coach companies. 

Wilson’s Transportation Ltd of Victoria, Vancouver Island operate express services from various points in downtown Vancouver to Victoria on Vancouver Island using BC Ferries Connector name. The summer schedule has six daily departures and the winter schedule has four with a total end-to-end journey time of four hours. Photographed at the Vancouver Pacific Central Station terminus is fleet number C262, a Prevost H3-45, acquired from Pacific Coach Lines in 2019.  

Coast Mountain Bus Company 18381, Nova Bus LFS HEV, BAE HybriDrive HDS200.  104 buses of this type entered service between November 2018 and May 2019. Service 22 is a north-south route connecting South Vancouver and Downtown Vancouver every 15 minutes. The bus is photographed south bound on Burrard Street.

Universal Coach Line is based in Richmond, an area south of central Vancouver close to the international airport, and provide private hire, contract and tourist services. Prevost H3-45 new in 2015 wears a vinyl wrap for the free shuttle service to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, 9km from downtown. The free shuttle operates all year round with pick-ups at Canada Place on the water front and the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the city centre. On the day of our visit Universal were providing a multi-vehicle shuttle service from the Canada Place Convention Centre, hence the No.2 on the clipboard in the windscreen.

Epic Rides was founded in 2010 offering minivan services from the international airport. In 2025 they operated five Volvo powered Prevost H3-45 coaches from downtown to Whistler, a ski resort in the Blackcomb mountains 121 kilometers from Vancouver, up to six times a day, with a journey time of 1hr 45mins. The coach is making a left turn into the city centre terminus located on Melville Street adjacent to Burrard Skytrain Station and the Hyatt Regency hotel.

Vancouver receives around 800,000 cruise passengers and over 11m visitors a year. Westcoast Sightseeing have been providing sightseeing services in Vancouver since 1984. Currently in excess of fifty-one vehicles of various types are operated including Alexander Dennis Enviro 500 double-deckers. Fleet number 293 is an ElDorado Escort RE dating from 2001 and used primarily on hotel transfers to the main tour fleet. Big Bus branding is used for much of the operation and a booking kiosk is maintained at Canada Place on the waterfront. 

Coast Mountain Bus Company 21025, an NFI XDE60 delivered in 2021. The last of a batch of 25 delivered between March and June 2022. Operating route 2, a north-south route connecting Dunbar Loop and Downtown Vancouver via Kitsilano. It is a frequent 15 minutes service operating seven days a week. The bus is turning from Burrard Street into Pender Street.

West Vancouver Transit (Blue Bus), formerly West Vancouver Municipal Transit, is owned and operated by the District Municipality of West Vancouver under a contract with TransLink. The system started operating in 1912 and is one of the oldest continually operated municipal transit systems in North America. Fleet number 907 is one of nine Nova Bus LFS units built in 2009. Route 250 is an east-west route connecting Horseshoe Bay with Downtown Vancouverl. The bus is on West Georgia Street in downtown, approaching the end of the route. 

No visit to downtown Vancouver can ignore the extensive trolleybus network with 13 routes, 262 buses and over 370 kilometers of wires.  Coast Mountain Bus Company 2144, an NFI E40LF Škoda 19 ML 3550 K/4 dating from 2006 waits at the junction of Granville Street and West Hastings Street approaching the historic area of the city centre. Route 16 is an east-west route connecting 29th Avenue Station and the 63rd Avenue Loop at West 63rd Avenue & Granville Street, operating every 10 to 15 minutes. 

Bus and Coach World

Marrakech 2019

Marrakech was founded in 1062 by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, leader of the Moroccan Almoravid empire, and became the capital of that empire. Later the capital was moved to Fez and subsequently in 1911 to Rabat. Today, Marrakech is the fourth largest city in Morocco, after Casablanca, Fez and Tangier, with an urban area of 88.80 sq miles and a population of 953,305 and is capital of the mid south-western region of the country. It is the region’s commercial centre and transportation hub for the minerals that are extracted from the Atlas mountains. The city’s main economy is based on tourism as well as agricultural products and is also the headquarters of bus operator ALSA Morocco.

The majority of buses are Scania which are built as knock-down kits at Scania's factory in Katrineholm, for assembly and bodybuilding in Morocco. In 1999 Scania received its first major order from the city for the supply of L94IB city and inter-city chassis. Scania Maroc has a major service facility in Agadir.

Since 1999 ALSA, a subsidiary of the British based National Express Group, has managed the transport network in the city, and is now operating 42 city routes, three suburban services and the one line BRT route utilizing 257 vehicles. The main focus for the city network is around Bab Doukala, a one-way system featuring a park situated in the middle of a roundabout just outside the old Medina wall. Twenty-five services terminate or pass through this area, and it includes the northern terminus for the BRT. The Gare Routiere coach interchange is also located here. Additionally, ALSA is responsible for the city sightseeing franchise which it won in 2006 and when the contract was subsequently renewed in 2017, fully electric double-deckers were introduced. 



The city has two departure points for long distance express services. Independents depart from Gare Routiere Voyageurs  on Rue Bab Doukkala, located in the northwest of the city. The coach station consist of two areas, one is a traditional line of herringbone bays open to the elements and the second is a number of unusual undercover bays of dubious architectural design. The departure point for CTM and ALSA express services is from Rue Abou Bakr Seddiq, just south of the central railway station. Both coach stations and the railway station are served by the BRT line.

The BRT line is the first in Africa and commenced on 28 September 2017. ALSA operates services between 06.00 and 23.00 every 6 minutes at peak times and every 12 minutes off-peak. To use the service Moroccans pay 100 dirham (£7.90) per day and 150 dirham for two days, while foreigners have to pay 150 dirham per day and 200 dirham for two days.  A fleet of fifteen Dongfeng Yangtse Veryon G92 trolleybuses were delivered of which twelve are required to maintain the service: these buses cost 4 million dirham each (£316,000.00) and were financed by the Ministry of the Interior. The 12m long, partly low-floor, vehicles are equipped with batteries for off-wire operation (although no wire infrastructure is visible between Gueliz and the central station). The fleet is due to expand by the end of 2019, when ridership is forecasted to be 45,000 passengers a day.  Dongfeng Yangtse is a bus manufacturing company based in the central China city of Wuhan in Hubei province. Formerly known as the Wuhan Public Bus Factory, the company traces its roots back to 1929. They will supply 20 18m long trolleybuses in the near future. 

ALSA 9217, a Solaris Urbino 18 Hybrid on Avenue Mohammed V operating route 16 from the central Djemaa El Fna terminus to  Azzouzia - a suburb in the north west of the city.

Dongfeng Yangtse Veyron G92 trolleybus number 08 on the segregated roadway is approaching the Grand Poste intersection on Avenue Hassan 2 heading towards the Gueliz (Bab Doukala) terminus.

Scania with Tata Hispano Habit body passing through the Bab Er Robb arch on route 35 (Sidi Mimoun - Tahnaout).

ALSA 9293 a Scania about to depart on service 38 from the Bab Doukkala terminus to Bengeurir located in the north of the city.

On Avenue Mohammed V  a locally built Irizar body on Scania chassis operating route 1 Bab Doukkala to Arset El Bilk.

 

ALSA 9245 travelling along Rur Oqba Ben Nafaa on route 24 Mimoun to Taheslouht.

Travelling along the public road section of Avenue Hassan 2 parallel to the BRT is  a high floor Scania on suburban service 251 from Sidi Mimoum to Ghmat.

Gare Routiere Voyageurs outside departure bays with a line of independent express operators touting for trade. All the coaches carry locally built Irizar bodies.

The architecturally suspect design for the undercover departure bays at Gare Routiere Voyageurs.

Bus and Coach World