As many as 57 local students are now experiencing first-class comfort every single school day, after a brand new luxury coach joined Popes Timboon’s school bus fleet this week.

The Scania Irizar is operating in the Cowleys Creek area, taking students to and from Timboon P12 School in class and style.

Popes Timboon operations manager David Pope said the vehicle had provided a good opportunity to launch a fresh new livery for the fleet.

“It’s a very sophisticated and sleek bus and it’s finished really nicely, so we decided to update our branding with a new livery to really showcase the vehicle,” he said.

“Like all of our school buses, we’ve had seatbelts fitted here in Australia and we’ve had the vehicle speed limited to 90kmh for additional safety.”

Mr Pope said the bus was fitted with a DVD player and every student had their own climate control, but he said its best features were environmental.

“It’s a Euro 5, low emission, automatic, diesel bus and we’ll use AdBlue to reduce emissions further. But we’ll also operate it in an economy setting to make it incredibly economical,” he said.

“The technology fitted is really advanced. The economy setting reduces power, but allows us to operate the vehicle in a way that greatly reduces its carbon output.”

Mr Pope said the technology also allowed the bus to be used for coach and charter work.

“Outside of its school bus contract obligations, it will complete lots of charter work,” he said.

Mr Pope said a fire suppression unit had also been fitted. In the event of an engine or exhaust fire, the vehicle automatically senses the problem and extinguishes it, he said.