(18 Nov 2013, 7:47 pm)GMitchelhill wrote Most recent excersion into a depot on a service bus was a few months ago when I got on an Arriva DLA atAshington Bus Station where upon departure headed into thdepot yard for a drink of water.
Anyway there is a few places around the country where the bus station often doubled up as a Bus Depot.ncluded places such as Jarrow, Park Lane (old one), Galashiels, Stokesley, Northampton, Berwick, Gallowgate,and no doubt many more around the UK.
Chances of bus companies will change buses where is causes the least convinience to the passenger and doesn't lose too much time.
As far as I'm aware, there are no strict policies (at least for GNE) about buses going into depots with passengers on, as long as they remain on the bus at all times. Going into the depot yard 'for a drink of water' is not particularly bad in comparison to passengers having to alight a bus inside of a depot to get to their replacement vehicle - as citaro5284 said above.
In the event of a bus needing to be replaced while on route, the driver should contact his 'home depot'. If the bus is closer to another depot, his 'home depot' should get in contact with the aforementioned closer depot. An allocator should then provide a new vehicle and they should ask a depot engineer to take it to a suitable 'meeting point'.
At a last resort, the driver should go to the depot to pick up the vehicle himself. In this case, he should park the bus at a suitable place outside of the depot (at a bus stop if applicable), and the driver should pick up the bus and pick the passengers up from the point he dropped them off at.
This does not involve going inside of a depot, for this breaks a good few rules. If drivers are doing this, they ought to be reminded that the rules changed a good 5 years ago or so. Like I say, there are a number of possibilities that could happen (however unlikely the events happening are).