(18 Oct 2015, 10:09 am)B10man wrote I too have noticed arriva buses going very slow on leaving Baras Bridge going onto Great North Road. Its a 50MPH and they struggle to do 40MPH. I don't wheather thats the way arriva management want them to drive or if its the bus. Not forgetting it could be the driver trying to be awkward and drop a run, or claim some overtime.
Not seen Ashington depot do this mind bar once, always got up to 50mph and I've even been on one of the Daf coaches last year which overtook a Jesmomd B10BLE ALX300 under the Central Motorway.
I think that Ashington are quite strict on driver discipline on the main routes due to the fact that if they're late, then passengers are more likely to claim under the Sapphire guarentee.
With Blyth, I think that they need to do the following:
- Crack down on the small minority of awkward drivers.
- Setup the vehicles to ensure that they run to time.
- Split the X8 with the section between Cramlington and Blyth being replaced by a service which would combine with the X10 / X11 from Blyth and between Cramlington and Newcastle roughly every 10 minutes. Also, extra time would be given to the X10 / X11 to improve reliability.
- X7 / X8 revised timetable to improve reliability.
- 308 PVR increased to 10 vehicles with a revised timetable to improve reliability. According adjustments also made to service 306.