(18 Jan 2016, 9:42 am)Kuyoyo wrote Extra bus probably would be needed. 5 is currently 2hr 40 mins and a 5a is 2hr 10 mins so they interwork on a 5 hour cycle. Swapping the routes round would probably see the timetable have to be completely rewrote to either retain inter working or to make both standalone which would then cost more in resources. I would suggest any Loftus-Asda link be separate from the main 5/5a.
It wouldn't use any extra resources as the 5 would simply become 3 hours round, using 6 buses, and the 5A drop back to 2 hours using 4 buses so could be done within the current resource of 10 buses. The problem we have with it is it's very inefficient driver wise only using someone for 3 hours from a potential 5h30 piece... whereas the current circuit of doing both in 5 hours is very efficient use of driving time. The 21a suffers from this also.