(17 Oct 2020, 9:00 pm)Storx wrote I'm not trying to be funny but that isn't a refurbishment it's just the seats redone in something that contrasts with everything else. Looks terrible imo. Suppose it's another interior design to add to the other 10 or so GNE have.

Nor was it ever really intended to be perceived as a refurbishment! It's a seat re-trim (which includes fitment of USB charging points to maintain the previous specification of the Citaros), at the same time as the repaint being completed.

Anything more, you're going to add considerable time (and cost!) to the quick spruce-up these buses are receiving. Time and money which Go North East doesn't have, in the current climate, where the return to service of these double-decks permits a further single-deck to double-deck upgrade.

Agreed that there's a bit of a colour clash here, and the poles at the base of each seat should have been repainted black to 'mask' the rust. It will be done in due course (and add another colour into the tenth variant of interior design that Go North East have introduced, to keep you and streetdeckfan happy on that front!)

(17 Oct 2020, 10:42 pm)Storx wrote Is it a capacity upgrade though? It used to be every 10 minutes in 2018 but now it's every 15 minutes. I can't imagine there being too much of a difference between 6x Citaros vs 4x B9TL's. Dangerous move that imo, surely the opposite approach would be wiser get the impression around that the bus is the better option to travel and try and give a Metro vs Bus decision for people. If the Metro becomes more reliable, it's more frequent and has new trains on vs battered buses and less frequent it's not a hard decision. That not hugely profitable bus route will very quickly become unprofitable.

Even using your logic it's a capacity upgrade in terms of number of seats per hour - 40*6=240, 71*4=284 - but not too sure why this should have anything to do with it.

The service's frequency wasn't reduced due to the impending double-deck vehicle allocation. It was reduced because the demand which was once there, wasn't any longer (and I know the counter argument to this is always that reducing the frequency can reduce demand further, and this is in turn a vicious circle). I'd suggest that perhaps if the service wasn't interworking with the 26, it would have maintained a 12-minute headline frequency, but you can't really interwork a 12-minute frequency service with a half-hourly frequency service, particularly efficiently.

There's no comparison to be made between Metro and bus, really, either. In terms of its frequency, capacity and speed, the Metro wins every time. The perception of a Metro to a bus is in another league, and the bus will never win (even more so when their new trains arrive). I dare say most passengers on this corridor would still use the Metro even despite its poorer reliability, as whenever there is disruption, ticket acceptance is arranged on the 26/27 and quite often replacement buses are also provided.

It's the same with Stagecoach's X24 for journeys between Sunderland and Newcastle. There's very little traffic going end to end (other than ENCTS), and really the bulk of the passengers are picked up along Chester Road in Sunderland (the more residential part of the route), where passengers previously would use Go North East's services (2/2A to Washington Galleries and X1 to Gateshead/Newcastle), or go to University Metro (walk or bus) and catch the Metro from there. Anecdotally, a lot of the passengers on the X24 are Network One ticket holders rather than dedicated Stagecoach ticket holders.

I'd argue end to end traffic on the 27 is almost non-existent (again possibly besides ENCTS) and, really, this route offers a service to those who don't have easy access to a Metro station. There are several parts of the route where, by the time you also add in walking time, it's quicker to catch the bus.

Regardless of all of that - replacement of single-deck buses with double-decks in terms of capacity is an upgrade, replacement of buses with terribly worn leather seats and USB charging points which often don't work, and replacement of buses with Euro 5 emissions with ones which now have Euro 6 emissions, is a huge positive. The same people (mostly on Facebook) who have criticised the upgrade, are the same people who often say that the sun shines out of Go North East's rear bumper, yet I'm still waiting to see evidence of capacity/specification upgrades elsewhere..?