(19 Sep 2020, 3:57 pm)Dan wrote Bit of a sweeping statement but I’m friends with a few Gateshead Central Taxis employees on Facebook and there seems to be a shortage of ticket machines since their award of a lot of contracts this year.
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Interesting, pretty poor show then tbh.
(19 Sep 2020, 4:03 pm)6049 wrote I'm all for offering best value to tax payers, however that also needs to be reflected in value to customers. I know in Washington, GCT fares are slightly cheaper than GNE, however the issue is that most already have bought day tickets on the GNE services. I've heard of a number of occasions where passengers with day tickets have been forced to pay when they should be accepting the tickets. On top of this, every GNE bus is equipped with contactless payment facility. Once the service is secured however and GCT take over, there is no such facility. The NSA's etc offered on board of most GNE services are also a feature which is not replicated. Like or loathe them, they are definitely a helpful feature especially on dark nights.
The buses they have as a rule are slightly newer but is this really a factor which should be considered apart from in terms of Euro emissions standards?
Most importantly in my opinion is the redundancy - if there is an issue on one of the GNE vehicles, a replacement will be sourced and deployed ASAP. I have heard of services being absent all night due to a breakdown although I confess this is hearsay so please don't take that comment as gospel. It's even down to the tracking (as previously mentioned in another reply) and the social media alerts. I know not everyone has access to Facebook or Twitter but at least those who do can check to see whether or not there is an issue en route and can make alternative arrangements if there is a delay or breakdown.
In regards to the breadvans, I believe that on the Washington services, they do not have the required capacity to fulfill the contract requirements. I have lost count of the times that there's been at least one breadvan out on a night. The other day, one of the ADLs was running round with a broken front blind (showing NIS on the rear and side) with 82 printed on a sheet on A4 stuck to the front windscreen.
I'm not trying to knock them, however, I strongly believe that a secured service should be like for like with what is run during the day - I.e. with the required capacity (especially in terms of fulfilling the contract), NSA's would be nice but not essential. However, most importantly in the current climate there should be the facility to pay by contactless.
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Yeah I understand your points on contactless but with the points about the ticketing then really it's GNE you need to blame here rather than GCT - at the end of the day they're the ones who don't want to run the service and let it go out for tendering, they could easily run it if they wanted.
In terms of the rest of it tbf it's Nexus that needs to be blamed here more than anything. The tendering system is a badly done and doesn't work. It's stupid the way they do it in short timeframes with no guarentee your going to get any work in the next tendering and it's something which realistically needs changing imo. You'd probably see a much better service and more buses spare so you don't have the issues with wrong allocations and buses in service with a broken NSA but it's rather difficult from GCT point of view if their contacts are only a year / 2 year and then it's roulette again and if they fail miserably then they've got buses sitting around doing nothing. The way the contracts are done also give no motivation at all for the operator (whoever it is) to give a good service it's more about checking boxes since there's no liability and no motivation to grow the services as it makes no difference to them.
I'd like to see them work with the operators who run the services ie the Washington services in ways to work together to create a way in which they can run without the use of tendering but without paying through the odds. Surely it would be cheaper for Nexus to work with say GNE on a way to make the buses running ie via a subsidy with the aim of trying to make them profitable / decreasing it over time in a similar way that Northumberland CC and Durham CC do it. Even the longer contracts work better in Durham ie the park and ride and cathedral buses which are all well ran services in the main with new buses etc. Then to be fair it would be nice to see Nexus trial some form of DRT service to replace the likes of the W1, W2, W3, 59 etc with Gateshead Taxis as they have the vehicles which would be perfect for it and DRT and Taxi's aren't exactly a long way apart in terms of how they run so they have the callers etc already.