Think the favourites to be left off are the 19, 35, 40, 42, 71, 168, 335 & 520 & 558.

You'll never see the PR1/PR2 missing unless the bus breaks down, then it's replaced within the next trip, whereas the 42 or 168 could be without a bus for the rest of the day.

Operationally, not a good way to do things, although because every route is a contract, something has to go if the resource just simply isn't there. Obviously the Live Tracking on bus times does help, although sometimes the bus has actually been running, it just hasn't tracked.

Regarding the 82 not tracking, I believe it's a mistake on their end, where the ability to track the bus wasn't selected when publishing the timetable, something very similar to when Borders Buses first took over the 418 & it took about a year for it to finally track as the '0418' for some reason.

Obviously the PVR will increase by 2 on Monday with the 599, so one would hope they have a contingency plan to ensure that they are not going to end up not running services for the full day or indeed taking a bus from the 520 to do a 71...

(18 Mar 2026, 1:07 pm)Nerd4321 wrote The 599 does worry me under GCT as they seem to keep taking a bus of the 35 recently. Seems to do 3/4 trips in the morning then its taken off and its down to 1 bus for about 2 maybe 4 hours before its replaced. And its not like the bus breaks down cause it goes to the depot then onto another service

I hope we dont see this happening with the 599 but if it doesn't track there is no way of knowing

Have you contacted Nexus about this and provided examples.  After all GCT will submit an invoice  and have to explain lost mileage  on why they shouldnt be paid for a service that they havent provided

As predicted. The 599 does not track

(Yesterday, 6:19 am)Nerd4321 wrote As predicted. The 599 does not track

Hopefully its because its the first day, hopefully its tracking soon.

(Yesterday, 12:44 pm)Michael wrote Hopefully its because its the first day, hopefully its tracking soon.

The 82 hasn’t tracked since they took over the contract in May last year so i don’t have high hopes for tracking but you never know.

First day of the 599 and only one bus operating this afternoon. Apparently they have had a "breakdown". Guess it sounds better than a "puncture" which is a bit old now.

They did get both of the new buses onto the route this morning it seems, so presume the 82 would have been allocated whatever was spare.

Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

Edit - No breakdown it seems as YX26KKD is now operating on the 82 having been on the 599 earlier, operating alongside SK19EYH, no doubt one of the early finishing runs on another route will have then went onto the 599...

(Yesterday, 3:34 pm)S830OFT wrote First day of the 599 and only one bus operating this afternoon. Apparently they have had a "breakdown". Guess it sounds better than a "puncture" which is a bit old now.

They did get both of the new buses onto the route this morning it seems, so presume the 82 would have been allocated whatever was spare.

Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

First day... good start...........

Lets hope this isn't gonna be a regular thing.... makes it worse, there's no tracking

(Yesterday, 3:34 pm)S830OFT wrote First day of the 599 and only one bus operating this afternoon. Apparently they have had a "breakdown". Guess it sounds better than a "puncture" which is a bit old now.

They did get both of the new buses onto the route this morning it seems, so presume the 82 would have been allocated whatever was spare.

Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

Could see this happening, but not first day

(Yesterday, 3:34 pm)S830OFT wrote Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

This seems to be an almost daily occurrence at this point, 42 & 71 having journeys which don't operate, often taking a bus from one to allocate to the other, another is the Durham 40/40A/41 being cut from two buses to one, leading to the one bus having to do a hybrid of both routes [40/40A] so trips are doing something like Cathedral - Waterside - Rail Station - Cathedral.

Only one bus on the 71 at the moment one of the 19 seater Mercs with 4 rear facing seats! Whilst the other bus that was on has been taken off at Seaham after only 1 run to go onto the 168, again...

GCT might aswell just hand the contract back as they are just not fulfilling their contractual obligation to provide a service.

One month with only one bus on the Cathedral bus too, I feel sorry for the poor drivers who will no doubt be getting all the questions, not helped by the fact the 42 also tends to go missing at 11am for the rest of the day so the bus can go onto the 71.

They could be a really great company, but sadly they are not doing things correctly at the moment.

Absolutely shambolic  company, should never have been given the 599 contract, Northstar were fine. The Saturday running of 319 service shows how poor and unreliable they are especially with the lack of the ferry crossing.

The 19 has stopped tracking as well, largely anyway, there was a couple of trips tracked this morning then stopped. I hope this changes again as this service experiences a lot of delays at peak times, but with GCT you never know if its coming or not. Especially as they have upped their PVR again.

(2 hours ago)Baywatcher wrote Absolutely shambolic  company, should never have been given the 599 contract, Northstar were fine. The Saturday running of 319 service shows how poor and unreliable they are especially with the lack of the ferry crossing.

To be fair, they've not been given much time to mobilise, as discussed in the March tenders thread