About Us
As one of the longest serving independent bus operators in the west of Scotland, we at Gibson Direct pride ourselves on being a family run business with a great local reputation. In business since 1996, our fleet has built up from a handful of second hand Freight Rover minibuses on one route, through Mercedes minibuses and modern Dennis Dart midi buses to what is now the most modern bus fleet in the central belt with no less than twenty two brand new Optare Solo super low floor buses, all of which were bought new since 2004 and are operated on our network of frequent wheelchair accessible services seven days a week.
Although predominately a minibus operator at the time, 2001 saw the introduction of our first five low floor Dennis buses, the start of services to Glasgow and Erskine, and the start of the transformation of Gibson Direct into what it has become today. Although these services were eventually given up, a concerted effort was made to concentrate on our core network, work which has made it into one of the best patronised and most highly regarded in the area. In 2004 we were successful in tendering for SPT Dial-a-Bus contracts which saw the operation turn another corner, with more SPT work following for hospital link services in North Ayrshire, Inverclyde and Renfrewshire. The last Mercedes buses were withdrawn from use by 2005, at which time the service bus fleet became 100% low floor – only the second operation in Scotland to do so, and as yet the only one based wholly in Renfrewshire.
A brand new 33-seat Mercedes Cheetah coach was purchased in 2002 for the private hire and contract fleet, and the number of hires quickly overtook the number of coaches. Further examples were purchased and no less than six are currently operated on a variety of school contracts and private hires, with the pride of the fleet being one of the latest generation Mercedes Cheetah 2s which was delivered in 2008. The same year also saw the first double decker enter use, and the fully refurbished 85-seater has proved a popular and useful addition to both the private hire and service fleets.
2008 was the beginning of the end for the Dennis Dart SLF bus in the Gibson fleet. Despite having operated almost fifty examples over the previous seven years, the Optare Solo had by now taken a firm foothold and the first examples of the Dart SLF departed in summer 2008. At the time of writing in February 2009, only six examples remain in use though these should be replaced by the end of the year.