(19 Jul 2020, 3:20 pm)JP6004 wrote Constantly get new buses? X1 hasn't had anything for 8years. I believe it was the Npower contract that paid for new buses on the X1 in 2011 due to the requirements of low floor DD. Due to increased passengers on X1, further 7 were bought to deal with demand the following year. The 21 never received a proper allocation of new buses until 2017, when the 15 B5H were introduced in 2012, the PVR was increased and allocated older DD to compensate. Made sense to acquire new buses that met PVR and allocate the B5H to the 1....that was well overdue an upgrade.

Let's not forget the CAZ due to come in everything going into Newcastle has to be euro 6, meaning newcastle services need to take priority. No doubt there would of been an even distribution of new buses had this not been the case

But is the X1 losing customers? It's not so why buy the new buses for them - 8 years isn't long at all. The 26/27 which they're getting dumped on haven't had new buses since god knows when - I really don't know. Anyone answer this? Why not give the X1 buses a decent mid-life refurb (so they're as new) and instead give the 26/27 some love instead for a change. Now all your doing is giving the X1 new buses which it doesn't really need (people would appreciate the mid life refurb as much) and the 26/27 are getting the, oh look the X1 has new buses AGAIN and we're getting the old buses dumped on us. It's the same with the 6 and 25. They're almost ignored lately and it's a creating a bad core and non-core services with GNE and the non-core services are a mess. This isn't just GNE; Arriva used to be bad for it aswell but not as much lately they've seemed to moved to a buy new buses and keep them on there until their dead approach which I prefer. You don't hear anyone complaining about the 'old' 59 plates at Blyth as they were there from new.

Have a flagship route in timetables and ticketing but it doesn't mean they need new buses all the time.