(14 Jun 2022, 10:20 pm)Storx wrote Yeah totally agreed with what you say to be honest. I've definitely found that with GNE but then again I rarely post things are positive unless it's correcting people as it's not really debating stuff.
Mind Arriva always baffles me as even known it's supposedly 1 company up here it really doesn't feel like it. It definitely feels like there's
Arriva Northumbria: Ashington, Jesmond, Blyth
Arriva Teesside: Redcar and Stockton
Arriva Durham: Durham and Darlington
With the first two lot generally being okay, attempting to keep their fleet in some form of order with the obvious lack of investment, generally handled Covid alright with sensible frequency decreases and haven't really been affected by the driver issues much.
Then there's Durham and Darlington which are just terrible, the fleet is in shocking condition, cancellations are rife everywhere, allocations are all over the place with Solo's doing full size routes and vice versa. The Pulsar's that came up here from Durham are in an absolutely shocking state and it's not as if they can blame the areas as Ashington isn't exactly Beverly Hills. It always feel like GNE are really micromanaged from the top but Arriva are just let to do whatever they want, what's better it's up for debate really but there's no consistency across Arriva.
Although this isn't the Arriva thread, would just like to say I completely agree with this. At the end of the day, the problem with Arriva is their model is a few years of intense fleet replacement, then let them rot for 15 or so years without so much as a fresh coat of paint (ironically the complete opposite of GNE), then start over. However I do agree the Solo's are one their biggest problems. Darlington decreased the frequencies on the town services, and used that to withdraw the Omnicities, pushing Solo's onto big bus services. It seems recently Darlington have acquired some of Durham's Pulsars in exchange for the Solo's but that's just making the Solo problem at Durham even worse. I think either Darlington or Durham could do with a substantial Streetlite order for the 1/5/5a/X1 or 22/23/24 next year which I think have PVR's of around 15 and 19 respectively to see a bulk of the Solo's replaced by more appropriately sized buses with those remaining used exclusively on the Darlo town services.
Stockton and Redcar benefit from using just Pulsars, Streetlites and Temsa's (excluding the B9's, Gemini's and Solo's at Whitby) though I do think something need's to be done with the split of those three types at Redcar since they've not had enough Streetlites since the X3 began interworking with the 64. And Northumbria is going to get the added benefit of brand new vehicles seeing off the last few B7's, their Solo's and the shift around with the depots which should hopefully see things a bit more standardised.