(26 Sep 2016, 3:57 pm)Dan wrote I don't think low-floor coaches would be appropriate for the Tyne Tees Xpress.
Adrian and I were at Showbus yesterday, and we had a snoop around one of Trent Barton's new coaches used on the Red Arrows service. The driver was answering questions about the coach and one of the things he told us was that the wheelchair lift takes ten minutes to operate. If a wheelchair user wished to use the Tyne Tees Xpress, it would add 20 minutes onto the journey time (10 mins for the wheelchair user to get on, then 10 mins for the wheelchair user to get off). The current timetable does not allow for this sort of increase in journey time.
In addition to this, this type of coach costs approximately £100,000 more per vehicle. That would be an additional £700,000 to replace all six branded Volvo B9TLs and 6084. Although they may last ten years on this route, they may not. You'd then have the issue of which route you'd cascade them to, as Hexham wouldn't be able to accommodate anything larger than the tri-axle Scania Levantes that they're now using on scholars contracts. It would be difficult to sell them given they'd accumulate a very high mileage in ten years.
I meant something like a Neoplan Skyliner with a low floor rather than the Red Arrows Trent Barton have (assuming that's what you were referring to) which are just a bog standard coach from what I can recall. Unsure what wheelchair access is like on something like a Neoplan Skyliner though and if they'd be suited on normal service work.
In addition to the reasons you gave, I'd imagine the fuel costs would be pretty expensive, then there is the issue of size, if this did happen I would imagine that the X9/X10 would have to be taken out of Eldon Square and Middlesbrough Bus Station could be issue.
It's a tricky one the TTX, do you go for a bog standard bus and push them to their limits and have to replace them roughly every 5 years or do you go for some form of coach which would probably last longer but has issues like the above. Based on my experiences of buses which could go on the TTX, I'd say that the Enviro 400MMC's would be the best suited bus for the service (based on my ride on one of Stagecoach Cumbria's Lakes examples along the M6 between Lancaster and Kendal) but then there is the issue of it being a non standard vehicle type within the fleet when they have to inevitably be replaced on the TTX.