(28 Oct 2015, 8:37 pm)Venturego wrote Tonight at 8pm' ish noticed through Burnopfield Service 6 operated by Coast & Country Streetlite toward Newcastle; Service X70 operated by Durham Diamond Citaro toward Consett and a Service 6 operated by Toonlink Scania toward Stanley. Earlier the 6 to Newcastle was using the Beamish Streetlite. - This is a regular occurence on evenings (I have seen Coast & Country Streetlites on a number of occasions)
I would think depots should be either incentivised to allocate correct branded eqpt. to the designated routes, or penalised if they continue to mess about with putting any available bus on the route (if there is not a good reason for switch)
Marketing of branded routes will only suffer in the long term if customers (some elderly) get confused - especially when the route (43/44 - to New 6) has just been changed.
I'm not a fan of branded vehicles off route, and I agree with you that this can cause confusion, but I'd assume that on an evening, it's done on a cost basis. I'd imagine it's a lot cheaper to run a Streetlite on an evening, to what it is to run a decker. If the difference in operating cost over a year, means that the service becomes more viable, then I guess it has it's benefits.