(07 Mar 2020, 7:53 pm)mb134 wrote Looking at bustimes, these are the vehicles currently 'long term' VOR throughout the Durham County operation. For the sake of this I've classed long term as 5+ days, though there may be non-mechanical reasons for spells off the road for that period of time.
1416
1447
1463
1560
1563
1571
1592
1607
1612
2823
2830
2862
4650
4705
7421
7423
7425
7426
7456
19 buses out of a fleet of nearly 300 vehicles. That's 6% of vehicles - from memory I believe companies generally have a spare percentage of around 10%.
Of note is that, out of those VOR, you have 6 Streetlites and only 1 Scania.
Aware that this is a fairly crude and simplistic way of looking at it, but on the face of it there doesn't seem to be a problem with vehicle availability.
Depots at any one time have 2 vehicles off for annual MOT prep and presentation. They are normally off for a full week, so that list will include up to 14 vehicles that aren't long term VOR.
(07 Mar 2020, 6:49 pm)Jimmi wrote I would have thought something must be due to be purchased this year, most likely for Northumbria depots considering everything will have to be Euro 6 in Newcastle next year.
After it was mentioned the other day that GNE can't upgrade their Euro 5 StreetLite Micro-Hybrids without replacing the engine's, surely it will be the same issue with 1574-1589? Would imagine those could all end up somewhere within Durham County with either new stock or Pulsar's taking their place.
All of the Jesmond based Streetlites are already Euro6 converted, they were done early on.