(09 Sep 2013, 5:31 pm)Greg in Weardale wrote Top priority must always be to ensure a bus turns up on time. Ideally it'll be the correct type, but however hard companies try, they'll never manage this all the time. Having been a Controller (Service Delivery Manager, Duty Manager or whatever the title may be) for both buses and trains it's rare for a day to go by without events, often outside anyone's control, conspiring to cause disruption. Priority is always to run something as near on time as possible - you don't care what as long as something runs and passengers aren't left waiting (and in the case of contracted services and on the railways you get financial penalties). I fully support Northern's branding but it's totally unreasonable to expect that only the branded buses will run on their routes. Ideally, however they should be able to ensure that only correctly branded vehicles should be used, with red Northern ones covering branded vehicles on maintenance or breakdowns.
We seem to be going over and over the same ground here. As people have previously stated, it is an operational decision to run with MPDs on a Sunday (i.e. a decision completely in GNE's control).