23 Aug 2014, 8:27 am
#130
(23 Aug 2014, 8:14 am)Andreos Constantopolous If management are unhappy at the depot allocations, then there is an easy solution.
It just takes a few senior management plonked by the side of the road noting the 'improper' workings.
Rather than take the depots word as gospel, proof of breakdown, maintenance etc needs to be provided.
If proof cant be provided or the reasoning isn't good enough - then impose some sort of penalty to the depot.
Similarly, those meeting or exceeding certain performance standards can be rewarded somehow.
If the reward/penalty is financial - we may start seeing improvements.
Similarly, if a depot or staff start losing out, due to the allocator continually allocating incorrectly, I am sure peer pressure will come into play.
The company shouldn't be forced to repaint and incur extra painting costs, due to someone's incompetence.
I have a slight feeling the Percy Main repaints weren't done, just because of the incompetence though.
Disciplinary action is cheaper.
I agree completely, but this needs to come to their attention before they can do anything. I'm doubtful that there will be anything in place to monitor the allocations of corporate liveried vehicles.
Regarding the repaints - the reason why the vehicles were not repainted when they came off the Blaydon Racers and were transferred to Percy Main was to save money. It was thought that an in-house (rather tacky looking) livery design would be cheaper than to repaint all of the vehicles into corporate livery red.
The reason why they ended up being repainted in the end (meaning the company had wasted money branding the vehicles) was simply due to the fact that the branding was not working. The brand had already been diluted due to two Dennis Tridents being allocated to the scholar services that service 307 interworked with, but this was being made even worse by the fact more and more corporate liveried vehicles were being allocated whilst "Centurion" branded vehicles were being allocated to service 9. Given that the Dennis Tridents are Euro 4 because they are CRT-fitted, these vehicles comply with the contract specifications set by the Jarrow - North Shields section of the route and I still cannot fathom why they weren't allocated. Even now, I can't work out why the depots think that they have four spare OmniCitys for the Coaster, when they are to be allocated to service 9... The spare vehicles are the Dennis Tridents, and these should be allocated before anything else.
The only up-side to repainting the vehicles, as I have said previously, was that the book value of the vehicles was going to be increased.
