(30 Oct 2013, 11:44 pm)CatsFast101 wrote Well it's a good idea in principal but I'm not sure if it works in practice. How many times has a branded vehicle appeared off route while that service uses anything spare. I think it's good but it just seems a bit daft buying a new bus (or 2) as a spare when other services go without any new investiments and make do with rattling MPD's/SPD's or frequent examples of Olympians.
I think having a branded spare is good and is certainly helps in something which I think is a key- Brand Recognition, But in this case why not use existing vehicles as branded spares? I mean a quick example, would be like 8306-8309, allocating one as Drifter spare, two as CityLink spare and one as Saltwell Park spare.
BIB, you are suggesting using 39 seater Versas as back-up for 44-seater examples on a route that does fill the Citaro Artic used on it now. Given there's 14 Citaros, makes sense to order 14 Versas for like-for-like replacement. By having 2 in Northern, it doesn't limit their use unlike if they were branded for the 58.