(14 Nov 2023, 10:21 pm)solsburian wrote There is probably only a handful Northumbria routes that don't warrant a double decker,, perhaps exclusively Ashington's 1, 2, 57/57a, 434, and some 35 runs.

I'd agree. 

The 1 & 2 are more than comfortable with single deckers, excluding the one 1 board which gets slammed with college students. The 57/A would be more than fine with saloons, obviously the 434 is never going to need more than a minibus. 

All Morpeth services, bar the X16, require deckers. The X14 has now been tied in with school journeys on all three boards, and the X15/18 have always required them. I think there's still a board on the X20 which can get away with a single decker, but they're all very busy to town now and the last time I travelled on a single decker on it people were left at North Seaton. 

The X21/22 require them at peaks in particular, all boards I see into town on a morning are packed, and same with the ones I see leaving in an evening. There's realistically the boards which start as the 0734 X22 (though that gets pretty busy on the 1650 X22) and the 0909 X22 which could be done with a single decker, at least from what I've seen. 

With the Blyth ones I struggle to see any routes which could be fully single deck, even now when single decks are allocated to the X9/10/11 in the morning they're always a standing load into Newcastle. It's similar with the 43/44/45 on most boards, and of course now some are tied onto school work which require deckers. 

It's all well and good saying services don't need deckers during the day, for instance, but people will quickly get fed up of standing on a bus every morning for 20+ minutes. I'd wager that the services in ADC which are being looked at for deckers will be similar - I get that the 7 for example should be, but deckers were literally bought for that and growth on other services has taken them away by the looks of it. The answer should be more deckers in total, not robbing Peter to pay Paul. Redcar needing them is funny, they can barely look after the ones they currently have!