Minibus Hire
Sometimes you need to move more people around than you have seats in your car and for such circumstances, minibus hire might be the right choice for a number of reasons.
While we’re primarily known for car and van hire, minibus hire is also something we’re happy to provide and we have a range to choose from. Naturally, as you’d expect from Westwood, our minibus rental fleet features vehicles from the top end of each manufacturer’s range.
Why Should You Rent a Minibus?
When you have a bunch of people to transport from point A to point B and maybe back again, why wouldn’t you just use multiple cars? It’s a valid point and quite often, multiple cars are what people go for, however, renting a minibus in many cases could be a better choice in a variety of circumstances.
- Availability of cars or drivers. Not everybody drives and not everybody has a car, or at least a ‘suitable’ car. A minibus allows more people to be transported by fewer people, or on longer trips, for two drivers to share the responsibility and be able to take a break en route.
- Space & Luggage Capacity. Anyone who’s tried to cram five full sized adults into a hatchback will understand the benefits of choosing minibus hire! There’s more headroom, legroom and shoulder space allowing even the largest passengers to enjoy a less cramped journey. Naturally, there’ll also be more space for gear than you’d find in a regular car, so less time carrying your kit on your lap!
- Fuel Economy. Minibuses are larger vehicles usually built on commercial vehicle platforms and while a car compared to a minibus will always be more fuel efficient, when you consider that even the smallest minibus can replace two cars making the same trip, the efficincy savng goes in the minibuses favour. A 17 seat minibus can carry more people than three cars, but without using all that much more fuel. Put simply, minibus hire is a more cost effective and efficient solution than multiple private vehicles.
- Ease Of Parking. Similar to the fuel efficiency argument, while a minibus typically has a footprint bigger than a regular car, it takes up less space than the multiple cars it’ll be replacing. Perfect when headed to more congested destinations, or for when you only want to pay one set of parking fees rather than several. It goes without saying that our minibuses for hire will typically come loaded with all round parking sensors, often revers cameras and lots of other driver aids to help you manoeuvre them into the tightest of spaces.
- Keeping Everyone Together. Keeping everyone on a trip in the same vehicle makes it far easier to coordinate a group. It’s far easier than travelling in a convoy. Where everyone has different ideas about the route to take, the speed to travel at and who they want to be sat with. There’s also the camaraderie to be considered when a team all gather in the same place. When you hire a minibus, It makes for a much more enjoyable and sociable travelling experience.
Can I Drive a Minibus on my License?
Like all the vans on our fleet, the vast majority of our minibuses can be driven on a regular (category B) license, up to a point. However, anything with more than 9 seats will need an extra license category to be held. The very largest minibuses on our fleet, specifically our 16 seater minibuses and 17 seater minibuses, require the ‘D1’ category to be shown on the license of the driver. It’s also worth pointing out that if the D1 category shows ‘101’ after it, the driver is not able to drive the minibus ‘for hire or reward’, which is something you’ll have to look into to make sure the intended use doesn’t fall into what might be considered hire or reward.
What Sort Of Minibuses Are Available To Hire?
8 Seater & 9 Seater Minibus Hire
An 8 Seat Minibus or 9 Seat Minibus are perfect for many of our mini bus hire customers. They effectively take the place of two cars and usually will be based on the Ford Transit Custom (Tourneo), Renault Trafic, or Mercedes Vito (V-Class). In all cases, you’ll get either 8 or 9 full sized seats and plenty of extra high end features for the driver and passengers to enjoy.
16 Seater & 17 Seater Minibus Hire
As mentioned above, the driver will need to have the D1 category to hire a minibus with 16 & 17 seats, however these are most often based on the same platform as the Ford Transit Jumbo van. This large minibus (if that’s not an oxymoron) is a breeze to drive despite its size. Forget the rattly minibuses you went on school trips in back in the day, our minibuses feature the very latest technology, featuring parking aids, massive touchscreens, electrically extending steps, air conditioning, multiple passenger USB ports, some of them even open the sliding doors electrically at the touch of a button. Less of a mini-bus and more of a mixi-limo! Isn’t that just what your team deserves?
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