(06 May 2015, 4:47 pm)Malarkey wrote Just out of curiosity, how many of you feel that the Streetlites are rather slow.
Just that when I was on the 2 earlier on one of the 11reg Versas, 5409 went passed as we stopped at Hastings Hill to let a Wheel Chair Passenger off, obviously during this time the driver would have get out of his cab to get the ramp out etc, this would therefore allow 5409 to get quite far ahead right, well not quite we caught 5409 up just before the Roundabout at Penshaw Monument which I was quite shocked by considering we were at a Standstill for around a Minute while the Wheelchair alighted, I cant help but think if that was a B10BLE Wright Renown that it would been long gone, probably at the other end of Penshaw I think.
On top of that I used the 8 twice yesterday between Washington Galleries and Sunderland, going up/down Washington Highway felt like forever before we built up any form of speed as they are very slow in accelerating, by which time the Vehicle would have to slow down at a Junction, dont even get me started on my return journey on 5406, heating on full blast coupled with the "New Vehicle Smell" and "Leather" isnt pleasant at all whatsoever.
Which leads me to the conclusion that GNE have went for Quantity over Quality, basically theyve bought the Supermarket equivalent of "Asda Smart Price Beans" which isnt very nice, when they should of bought a tin of Heinz instead in the form of Mercedes Citaros, Maybe my opinion will change in the future when I use them to go up Stanley and Consett for Photographs in a few weeks, but thus far I am not to impressed on these Lightweight Vehicles, finishing on a positive, I do like the e-leather Seating, Wood Effect flooring and Branding on the Vehicles for the Services in which they have been purchased for.
Andreos1 posted his review of the lower specification Streetlite Micro-Hybrids on the X66 here. Aside from the comments regarding heat from the back of the bus, which appears to be standard on most/all recent new builds (including the Volvo B5TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 and Euro 6 Mercedes Citaro) as well as the lack of leg-room, it was a generally positive review.
How quick the Streetlite Micro-Hybrids are ultimately depends on their set-up. As far as I know, Go North East has had none of the issues Arriva North East had with their similar examples prior to them having work done to improve the performance, so I can only assume that they are set-up to be favourable on power opposed to efficiency, given the heavy endurance nature of the routes for which they have been purchased. What I will say is that I think it ultimately depends on how heavily loaded the bus is, as well as who is driving it. I have been on a Streetlite Micro-Hybrid with just one other person on-board (the driver), and on a Streetlite Micro-Hybrid with a full load including standees in public service. The difference in performance was quite substantial; heading up the bank to the Metrocentre Interchange, the former flew up, whereas the latter seemed to take a bit more time. I think slow acceleration is common on all newer buses, rather than it being a Streetlite issue.
The Streetlite Micro-Hybrids are limited in speed to 50mph, but there shouldn't really be an instance where a bus has to exceed this speed on the 8/78 routes? Obviously what I think is important to note is that you don't know what went on ahead, while the bus was out of sight. The driver of 5409 may have had to stop to let a wheelchair user on himself, or could have encountered an issue that he had to pull up to a bus stop and resolve. It'd be quite short-sighted to assume that just because you caught the bus up, the Streetlite Micro-Hybrid didn't stop and was just awfully slow.
Don't get me wrong, the Streetlites are no Mercedes Citaros (at least not the Euro 5 versions - I wasn't particularly keen on the Euro 6 variant), but I think they're suitable for their purpose within the fleet. Time will tell if that changes in years to come, but for the foreseeable future, I think they should be quite alright.