(23 Feb 2014, 5:35 pm)tyresmoke wrote Being the quickest option between Sunderland and Hartlepool helps, and the upgrade to full size buses must be justified otherwise as VolvoMarkII says, Arriva wouldn't invest if the business case wasn't there (or indeed if it would extract revenue from another route dragging the whole house of cards down...).

There's no denying that certain routes don't generate a massive amount of profit but they are slowly being thinned out (see the recent changes on Teesside) but there are a few jewels in the crown which see repeated investment across the region.

Hopefully by 2015 we will have all of the poor quality vehicles left in the fleet ousted, certainly we are expecting to be completely low floor inside the next few months. What's left of the DAF Prestiges will be all gone, as will the older MPD's and hopefully a start can be made on the larger Darts too

I have no idea where people are getting the impression that everyone has about the 23/24 not doing very well between Sunderland and Peterlee. I did the 1737 23 to Hartlepool on Thursday and took £41 on one trip alone, which doesn't sound a lot, but considering that there were 36 passengers on at one point is quite good justification of new buses. Strangely, there seem to be more people using the 23/24 to travel from Sunderland to Grangetown and Ryhope than there used to be, even when there are both a 60 and 61 sitting on the stands alongside.

Although the X7/X35 connection does give a similar journey time to the 23, that is only an hourly service whereas Arriva can boast a 15 minute service from Sunderland to Hartlepool, with the 23 running direct and the 22/24 connecting at Peterlee.