(18 Jun 2020, 8:40 pm)mb134 wrote Can't speak for Blyth and Jesmond as I don't know their routes as well, but Ashington could possibly swap some of the 35 and 57 allocations. As we've seen this week, continue with B7TLs on the 57s, and then the 35s with the higher frequency you can look at allocating deckers (7510) and full size singles (1579/80) then fill out with minibuses.
Hopefully, however, the government relax social distancing to 1 metre which would almost double the capacity on buses. To be honest, as long as people are wearing masks, I don't see a huge problem with 2 people sitting on every row of seats as long as they're all front facing - especially with windows open (i.e one person far left, one person far right, empty aisle seats but people also on the row immediately behind).
I don't know the fleet at Ashington but will they have enough buses to do that. I know 1579/80 are regularly on the 57 usually anyway (guessing minis off the road).