(18 Jul 2024, 6:37 pm)Washingtonian wrote Fair comments. Yeah breadvans are not the best vehicles by any means but for me there's no denying they are a good option and suitable for certain times and situations. They were really useful during the Go-Ahead Northern era as they served places like Richmond Avenue in Washington Village, Dorset Avenue in Barley Mow, Malone Gardens in Birtley etc. The old Dodge/Renault breadvans were ridiculously small but the Optare Metroriders were ideal. They would really come in useful for the elderly going to and from the club or seeing friends on an evening and they could always pick up normal fare paying passengers as well. These days people are having to walk further to get to their nearest bus stop and some people can't walk that far. I've said it before that it's daft that we have easy access buses now but people have to walk further. There may be easy access to get on board but in a lot of areas it's not as easily accessible to get to a bus stop which defeats the object. Also if the weather is bad people will want to get on and off the bus as close to their home as possible especially if they are carrying shopping. I'm not saying the fleet needs to be plastered with breadvans but a handful would certainly be useful. I can't understand Nexus at times re capacity as the subsidised services often carry lower passenger numbers. It seems daft of them when they will cost them less to pay for too!
Fully agree about the hub and spoke model mind. It doesn't work at all now and hasn't for years and years. The timing between the X1 and 85 you mention is just laughable! No wonder passenger confidence is so low now. Sadly I very much doubt they care.
Aye it's a fair comment, to be honest I always think it's a shame there's no really any actually good low capacity vehicles. Metrorider's were alright really, quirky let's call them.
To be fair the routes just probably aren't sustainable nowadays though since the driver is one of the most expensive bits and whether you have 2 or 30 people on, it's all the same price.
Apart from Darlington, Arriva have pretty much abolished the whole midibus network really, excluding the 57/57A at Ashington. GNE aren't really far behind. It felt like wherever you went 10/15 year ago there were MPD's.