(05 Sep 2021, 4:10 pm)Dan wrote Riverside operated the X30 long before it was upgraded to X-lines.
It was always said when Go North East diverted some of its StreetDecks to Oxford Bus Company that a new interworking pattern was planned to make use of the vehicles that remained at Go North East. These new interworking patterns were always going to see the evening X30 become operated by Consett (I think this has been said before too), but we have been in a global pandemic for the past year and a half which has prevented these schedule changes from taking place (due to the conditions of the government support package).
Whilst the plan has actually since evolved over the past 18 months, following local authority feedback, seeing the creation of services like the 47/47A and the curtailment of the X30 at Stanley, the schedule changes have been brought in at the earliest opportunity (and with that, the evening operation of the X30 transferring to Consett) and this issue addressed.
Not planned to coincide with the introduction of the first X-Lines spec vehicles in late 2019 though?
Regardless of the explanations, I understand that changes due to Covid might have prevented mass rota changes, it seems poor to be promoting evening journeys, X-Lines, etc yet to not make the effort to ensure vehicles matching the advertised spec were available for Riverside to allocate to the evening X30 for the past 18 months.
(05 Sep 2021, 4:10 pm)Dan wrote Whilst the point you make is the same, operationally the X15 is slightly different and a more difficult one to resolve. It is one that Go North East are aware of, but at this stage couldn't be resolved. The Venture minibuses are used on a night because minibus drivers (who are paid less than a 'big bus' established driver with more years experience) operate this service. It'd be massively inefficient and add a lot of extra cost to have the X15 operated by X-lines buses on a night, when passenger numbers are considerably lower than they are during the day.
Sorry, you want to use this service in the evening? Thanks for the money, but you're not quite as good as our daytime passengers so here's a minibus. Also, you don't deserve our more experienced drivers, they're above driving you home.
Maybe a factor in passenger numbers being considerably lower are because of practices like this.