Does anyone know what school contracts Arriva Jesmond has kept/lost ?
I heard a rumour that they have lost St Cuthberts & at least 1 Gosforth Academy run.

This has been something I've been thinking about lately, there's generally an obsession with GoNorthEast on here going into Stagecoach and Arriva areas but does competition actually create a better or worse bus service.

Based on the North East I kinda want to say no. There's only really 3 areas with real competition against each other; North Tyneside, South Shields and Sunderland and arguably they're the worst 3 areas in the North East especially in terms of subsidies or depots pretty much being closed (South Shields) whereas the areas which are monopolies generally have a better service ie. West End of Newcastle, Consett / Stanley, Gateshead, SE Northumberland etc.

This is both terms of the fleet age, the frequency of routes and the areas where most subsidies are.

I'm guessing it's down to the fact they can't make as much money as everything is shared so it's not as important to invest there as there's other places they could make more money so it just leads to constant downgrades.

Thoughts?

19643-3

Go North East are in the semi-finals of "The World Cup of British Bus Companies" on Twitter, and are running against Nottingham City Transport. It's currently neck and neck.

Have you cast your vote yet? Make it count!
https://twitter.com/TheWorldCupofE2/stat...3929608202

Has anyone managed to ride the electric Metrocity GNE has on trial at the moment? I wondered what your thoughts of it were.

I haven't been on it myself, but having watched a few videos of it on YouTube it doesn't seem like the most peaceful sounding electric bus ever, or at least not when accelerating over 30mph.

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London's new Caetano e.City's on the other hand sound very peaceful. Granted being in London it's probably trundling along gently & not having to accelerate onto the Tyne Bridge from a standing start to 40/50mph. But still, listen to this:

Forgive me if this does not warrant a new thread but looking through Flickr I couldn't help wonder if a list of former demonstration vehicles could be compiled and reasons for success or failure. I wondered why the B8RLE didn't match up to the Streetlite when it was trialled on the 20.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/nor...630671.amp

Wonder how this will affect buses coming in and out of Gateshead/Newcastle as it mentions closing certain roads to buses.

(Mods please move if posted in the wrong place)


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"Bus with Government's 'Stay Alert' sign gets stuck under railway bridge"

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/some...YbwNB3K8xY

Blyths'1401 previously reported as withdrawn to join the training fleet, was still in service today, making rather slow, smoky progress out of Blyth on service 1

With 8319 being given a new internal look a few months back, are there any plans to upgrade any other Versas.

Was 8319 done by a 3rd party or by Go North East themselves?