(15 Sep 2015, 7:41 pm)Jimmi wrote I still can't see any more double deckers being ordered for the 7 anytime soon, the Enviro 400's were bought for the busiest runs on the service and many of the boards the Pulsars operate don't really have many problems that I am aware of, the only issue with them is they stupidly don't have Arriva's usual Pulsar seating layout instead they have some different wacky design which loses four seats (so instead of 44 seats, they have 40). Also double deckers would be too much on a nighttime. My dream for Sapphire 7 is a half hourly Sunday service which probably won't happen anytime soon.
I would quite like to see Darlington get some double deckers for the peak time Bishop Auckland College 5/5A as I've seen it the last two mornings and there hasn't been many seats left by Aycliffe Town Centre so I dread to think what it must look like once it gets closer to Bishop Auckland.
Interesting to hear of capacity issues on an E400 operated service though... Where do we go next!?
The Pulsars tend to run the contra-peak services which is where the lower capacity vehicles will have to stay... I dare say that if passenger numbers continue to grow then they'll have to look at solving that equation!
I presume the Pulsars must be able to cope with the loading on that specific 5A journey now otherwise they would still be using a decker on it - it might well be wedged though, like many other services are. Great taking all these college travel contracts on but it doesn't half push the available capacity more than ever before... Middlesbrough College for example has 15000 students!