(01 Feb 2018, 5:29 pm)peter wrote I'm quite surprised that this hasn't happened. I was fully expecting Arriva to reduce the 19 to hourly and stick it onto the short 12s as the 12a so that they could discontinue the interworking with the 1/5/5a but keep the PVR the same. That way Darlington would have required 3 less Pulsars and could have gained 3 Optare Solo's from elsewhere in return.   

(For those interested if the 1/5/5a interworked the PVR would be 10 while the 12 and the 19's departing at :46 from Darlington would interwork with a PVR of 3 with the other 19 being 1 bus standalone with a 15 minute layover.)

That option you outline would require one more bus to do than it does now, which is probably why they haven't done it.

Apparently only 9 of the 13 buses will be branded for Service 1 and 5, so read into that what you will.

The next change date for Darlington is May, so we could see changes then.