(22 Mar 2022, 4:58 pm)Dan wrote I'm not sure I agree that it wasn't 'the best idea'. Go North East needed to upgrade capacity on service 16, which allowed some peak-time resource to be taken out (more cost effective). On average there are normally three Hybrids off the road at any given time, so three spares are allocated (6064, 6069, 6070). They also didn't meet the requirements for the CAZ, so had to be moved out of Newcastle city centre (though the council are now considering an exemption given the number of these that Stagecoach operate into the city).
There are more off the road at the moment, but this mainly relates to the shortage of labour across the industry. Volvo, like most sectors, are short of staff - this means the buses go to Volvo and wait to be repaired. We're jumping to conclusions if we assume it's because the work they're on is too strenuous for that type of vehicle; most drivers comment and say that they are much better than the Streetlites previously allocated.
Last week there was four ADL E400s off the road - are we going to suggest that they are allocated to work that's too strenuous?
Not at all but they've been unreliable long before the past few weeks, the fact there's 3 off the road when there's only 15 of them doesn't exactly show they're the best.
They're only there because there's literally no-where else for them to go without selling them imo. The ex. London B9's would be a much better fit with the hybrids on the 58/93/94 but obviously the LEZ has stopped that, where the stop start would actually be handy.