(11 Nov 2023, 10:18 pm)Storx wrote Yeah agreed, First are awful. They're not called worst group for no reason. Mind there's been improvements in recent years as 10 year ago or so they were in a really really bad place not that there's much bar for that.

Definitely agreed, wouldn't want them anywhere near the North East though, their Stoke operations are pretty awful aswell especially for a poor town which generally means high levels of bus usage. Mind not that Arriva can take a rosette for it either as they've just pulled out of Crewe completely.

Mind GNE have gone there before with the Omnicities in the mid-late 00's, one of the most bonkers decisions to then replace them with ex London stock. Very bizarre how they treat the 21 so badly considering it's probably their flagship route around that period.

The Pulsars at Ashington and Blyth for the 308/X30's was pretty shortsighted in 2009 aswell, which had similar problems.

There might have been some improvement in some areas, but from what I've witnessed it's been getting worse. Very small sample size of one operating area, but here's the Aberdeen network map from 2017, so just 6 years ago: 

First Aberdeen Network Map April 2017 by Jordan Adam, on Flickr

The 5, 8, 9, 16, 117, and X40 no longer exist. The 1/2 was a consistent B7LA/E500 allocation, the B7LAs are now long gone (partially replaced by some Citaro bendies which have been pretty unreliable) and the E500s are getting replaced by 61 plate E400s... The 1/2 are also consistently allocated single deckers in the evenings, which are totally unsuitable for the routes.

There have been some improvements, such as deckers onto the Dyce routes but given the ones introduced for the 19 are mostly back with Wrights because of capacity issues at the fuelling site, and that the 17/18 ones are helping out on the 1/2 from what I've seen, the benefit of this likely hasn't been fully realised. 

I think with GNE on the 21, you can at least forgive them that they have continually upgraded the fleet since then. The B5LHs and then the StreetDecks were improvements. I would imagine we'd have seen new vehicles again recently if not for Covid, and given the apparent state of those Streetdecks I wouldn't be surprised if that is the next route we see investment in. 

Arriva vehicle capacity is something you'd hope I Squared look at. There are a number of routes which should be allocated deckers on paper, yet either aren't due to availability or in some cases there's a split allocation and there's not much you can do (43/4/5 and X7/8/9). I see Pulsars on the 43/44/45 & X9 every morning with standing loads, same with whenever the 0649 X22 is allocated a Streetlite. 

Outside of those, you look at the 7 at Durham/Darlington, same with the 1 now the X1 has been cut. Wasn't the 6 also a route which needed deckers when converted to Sapphire? In terms of growth, you'd say even the X66/67 would be a logical route to put deckers onto if the growth on there continues - it's certainly more cost effective than increasing the frequency again. 

The amount of times the X93/4 were single deckers this year is laughable and given 7424-6 are still going you'd think there is no plan in place to replace them for next summer yet, where they'll likely make 1 attempt at an X94, die on a hill, spend 2 months VOR, then plod around on the 62 again.