(30 Jul 2014, 6:00 pm)aureolin wrote Something I've spotted straight away. It would appear that the minimum spec for Compass Community Transport's 37 board is a Euro 5 vehicle with capacity of 16, yet the board Gateshead Central Taxis have won for the 37 and 73 requires 3x Euro 5 vehicles with a capacity of 49. Seems bizarre how one operator can be contracted for 16 and one for 49 - i.e. 3x the capacity!
Also noted that the M2/M2A requires a Euro 4 vehicle for the Nexus funded runs. I'd assume these would be Sunday journeys, given that Arriva operate on an evening, with GNE running Concord-Heworth commecially. Both the MPDs and Cadets are Euro 3 vehicles, so I wonder if either a) GNE are just taking the hit here, or b) that information is wrong?7102 37,8X Compass Community Tpt 1 L1605 29/05/2011 25/07/2015 Wholly secured
7614 37,73 Central Taxis Gateshead 3 L4905 27/07/2014 22/07/2017 Wholly secured
7598 M2,M2A Go Northern 1 L2304 01/06/2014 30/05/2015 Partially secured
The contract for services 37/73 certainly originally stipulated the use of vehicles with a minimum capacity of 49, with Euro 4 vehicles, to my memory... Clearly Compass has submitted a non-conforming bid which has been accepted due to the lower cost for Nexus. I'd assume this is why the contract only lasts for one year with CCT, but three with GCT. Bizarre, nevertheless...
MPDs 603-606 and Cadets 8247/48, 8251-55 and 8260 are all Euro 4 vehicles. Although fitted with Euro 3 engines when new, they have had Eminox modifications to make them Euro 4. Indeed, all of Washington's fleet is Euro 4 or Euro 5. I have stated in the past that the overwhelming majority of Go North East's fleet is a minimum of Euro 4, thanks to Eminox modifications, with only a few vehicles being less than that, at Euro 2 or 3.