(03 Sep 2014, 6:25 am)Dan wrote Arriva and Stagecoach will different financial years to Go-Ahead and I believe they both order on a group-basis rather than company-basis to allow 'bulk discount' deals - this means that they tend to order at a different time of the year to Go North East.
Deliberation continues on Go North East's orders, but there is no rush. The likelihood is that orders were confirmed so early on last year due to the fact there were so many new buses going to enter service. It's already been suggested that this year's number won't be quite as significant.
Vehicle loans are still in place to determine suitability of that vehicle type on a specific route, with the current examples being Streetlite 5375 on loan to Stanley for the "Lime" services and Merc 9120 on loan to Riverside (again) for the X66. Once Go North East gathers a sufficient amount of data, they will be able to make a judgement and take it to Go-Ahead.
I must also note that the information about last year's orders wasn't intended to hit the public domain, until press releases from the manufacturers, such as Optare, were online. We were quite lucky in the sense that said information did in fact hit the public domain. I suspect we won't be quite as lucky to get a confirmed order list this year, and it'll be mainly built up on suggestions from those with inside knowledge.
I believe it takes approximately two to three months to process orders once confirmed, so buses still could potentially arrive before Christmas.
But no doubt they have ordered for their London based services with no care on price etc