Nottingham City Transport bid farewell to its last operational OmniDekka with a commemorative last running day on Saturday 30 May, back on the route the first OmniDekka served twenty-three years ago.
First running in Nottingham in 2003, the OmniDekka was the mainstay of NCT’s double-deck fleet for several years, with 174 buses purchased before production of the model stopped in 2011. NCT took delivery of the last 32 OmniDekkas ever made that year.
Navy Line 48 to Clifton through The Meadows was the first route to operate OmniDekkas in 2003 and was appropriately the route they ran on for the last time with NCT on Saturday 30 May 2026.
Whilst most OmniDekkas were replaced by Scania ADL E400s and biogas buses between 2013 and 2022, a small number have continued to run on the Nottingham Trent University inter-campus service, 4, until the end of this academic year.
The 174 OmniDekkas that were part of the NCT fleet travelled in the region of 75 million miles – the equivalent of going around the Earth over 3,000 times!
Anthony Carver-Smith, NCT Head of Marketing and Projects, said, “After twenty-three years, it’s the end of an era for Nottingham City Transport as we say farewell to the OmniDekka in front-line service. These buses were some of our first wheelchair-accessible double-deck buses, as well as the first to have audio and next-stop announcements. They were a significant upgrade when introduced and started NCT’s journey of specifying quality buses that put customer needs first, which continues to this day as we embark on the electrification of double-deck buses.”
Customers and enthusiasts joined in the commemorative last day, which concluded with the 19:15 bus from the City to Clifton returning at 19:44, being the last OmniDekka journeys operated by NCT.
Whilst the OmniDekka will no longer carry passengers for NCT, six remain in the fleet as driver-training vehicles, and many of NCT’s other OmniDekkas carry on in service with other operators, both locally and across the country.
