(15 Jun 2020, 5:38 pm)L469 YVK wrote Nothing to do with fleet numbers as such but making sure that the most suited vehicles are allocated accordingly.

With the X21 now extended to West Auckland plus a 30 minute frequency, it would make more sense to allocate the newest vehicles to reduce the chance of breakdowns and lost mileage. 

And even though repaints & small number of refurbs would cost money, it would still be cheaper than 9x extra vehicles surely?

The original order was for 22x vehicles for the Consett expresses (X31/45/46/47/70/71) and just 2 vehicles for the X21 to make up the PVR...now that the X21 PVR has decreased why would that change, especially when you'd have to go to the trouble of repainting all the current X21 vehicles! If the reliability of the X21 was that much of an issue, then you'd have thought the original order would have been for a full fleet of deckers for the X21 in the first place...I see your point and understand why you think it should happen, but I just don't think it's all that realistic. 

Yes that may be true, but they would save even more money by not going to the trouble of repainting dozens of B9's and Streetdecks only to replace them with B9's and Streetdecks