(04 Aug 2015, 5:10 pm)Dan wrote That's not the issue, Tommy.
I could count on one hand the amount of times Go North East's "Angel" branded Volvo B5LHs have been used on other commercial services besides service 21 (excluding scholars and those that they are scheduled to be allocated to - evening X21s and Night Bus N20/N21), whereas it's a daily occurrence at Blyth. Admittedly, it has drastically reduced in recent months and you no longer see a Hybrid on the X4/X5 at the same time a Quroum Express branded VDL Gemini is on the 308 at Blyth, so we're heading in the right direction.
I am in favour of effective regulation and spare vehicles being used to time-correct services, but the vehicle that is replaced shouldn't immediately become the 'spare bus' used for time-correcting. That's when branding goes helter-skelter, and makes a mockery of the whole concept. I appreciate it's better to send an incorrectly branded vehicle than none at all, but I would anticipate that Blyth would have more than one spare vehicle at any given time?
These vehicles were ordered with assistance from Government funding for use on service 308. Only in extreme circumstances should a Government-funded vehicle be allocated to another service.
I'm sure they would have buses spare, but what about the following situation:
Hybrid running 15 minutes late on a 308, Blyth send out a Gemini,
The Hybrid arrives in Blyth and an inbound X11 is running late, now this is going to be a journey that will arrive in Newcastle around 5, peak time. Now the only other buses spare are a Pulsar, and a few MPD's, what do they do?
You'd send out the Hybrid, now obviously that is a very select set of circumstances, and there obviously are occasions when that doesn't happen.
One question, the funding Arriva got for the Hybrids, why is it specifically for the 308? Sorry if the reasoning is obvious, but surely they would be encouraged to use them as often as possible (Sunday for example), in favour of a generic bus that will be worse for the environment?