London Hire Hand Over New Renault Multiplex Ambulance
Blue Light Services in partnership with London Hire’ and ‘Arriva Transport Solutions’ were pleased to announce at the recent Emergency Services Show that Arriva had placed a substantial order of the new ‘Multiplex PTS’ vehicle designed and built by Blue Light Services.
Mark Feather – Head of Operations (Arriva Transport Solutions), and Richard Gabriel – Head of Planning and Control (Arriva Transport Solutions), along with Johnny Fieldhouse from Blue Light Services, unveiled the vehicle featuring Arriva’s new logo at the show.
The vehicles, on a fully serviced contract hire via ‘London Hire Ltd’, feature a Renault Master chassis and can accommodate seated patients, wheelchairs and a stretcher in a range of configurations.
The stretcher and stretcher locks can be removed to allow up to six seated passengers or a combination of seats and wheelchairs.
Alternatively, with a stretcher on-board the offside seats can be folded away out of use.
Operations Director Steve Law (Arriva Transport Solutions) likes the multiple configurations of the vehicles and sees many operational advantages.
“They can very quickly be converted from a stretcher vehicle to carrying three wheelchairs,” he said.
“The wheelchair equipment – the three sets of ties – will be stored on board the vehicle in the cupboards below the modular seating system”.
“The configuration of the vehicle will be decided prior to each shift starting and the crew will convert the vehicle if they need to, which will only take a few minutes. Whilst the vehicle is in operation we can also make changes to the configuration as the needs of the day unfold”.
“Currently they have to remove the seats and store them but on the new vehicles they can swivel and be folded”.
“The seating and tracking system on these ambulances is unique to Blue Light Services and we will be the first major Patient Transport operator to put this out into operation. However, this doesn’t mean that they haven’t been tested – they have. And the feedback we have had from crews using these vehicles has been excellent.”
Johnny Fieldhouse, remarked: “Private ambulance operators may be able to reduce their overall fleet size as a Multiplex can perform the functions of multiple vehicle types removing the need for traditional dedicated stretcher, seated or wheelchair vehicles, and of course eliminating ambulance personnel having to remove bulky and heavy seats to change the vehicles specification. Tracking systems aren’t new, but we were unhappy with the design and weight of those already on the market and therefore we started from scratch and designed our own tracking system and therefore the Multiplex PTS is both brand new and exclusive to Blue Light Services”.
To find out more about how Blue Light Services or how London Hire can support your business please contact us at www.bluelightservices.com or call Darren on 07481 807 933 or 0208 965 8357.
London Hire LTD, Phone: 0208 320 4200, E-mail: rental@londonhireltd.com, Web: www.londonhireltd.com
