(15 Oct 2021, 6:49 pm)Dan wrote Which services are left at Northumbria that should be being allocated Solos, and what are their PVRs?

There seems to be a huge number of them allocated to Jesmond, Ashington and Blyth when only a few are required in reality? I think I read somewhere that Blyth only actually need one nowadays as the rest of the services there are operated by conventional full-size buses?

The 306 and X20 seem to have been allocated Solos on numerous occasions recently, and is presumably just because they're spare.

(16 Oct 2021, 8:22 pm)Storx wrote Jesmond
46 - 2
51 / 51A - 3
55 - 3
553 - 2
555 - 1 (Peak Only)

Ashington
57/57A - 4

Blyth
58 - 1

Believe that's the routes and numbers on them.

Northumbria currently have 28 Solo's for a theoretical PVR of 16 - massive overkill. At the moment 2801/2/16/21 seem to be out of use at Blyth while 2827 is long-term VOR if Bustimes is to believed, but that's still 7 spares. (Which makes it kind of strange that 1800 is now seeing use at Jesmond when there's 4 Solo's laid up at Blyth.) Of course the reality is that when the Cross Pennine Omnicities were withdrawn and had to be replaced by Pulsars, it became the case that there weren't enough full-size single decks at Jesmond for the remaining services and so some Solo's do seem to be regularly allocated to the 52/53/54 circuit. 

The key problem is there's nowhere else for them to go. The only other depot suitable for Solo's would be Darlington and they have more than enough. I had a similar conversation elsewhere regarding Arriva's excessive number of Solo's where depots like Jesmond and Durham would benefit from much more standardised fleets and fewer Solo's because of their lack of fixed allocations and their regulation of services. The only ways to solve this problem would be to increase the frequency of some services but reduce the capacity - something Arriva seem to be doing the opposite of as seen by the likes of the 1 and 2 in Blyth, while the alternative of course would be replacing the Solo's with some full size single-deck vehicles - at this stage I'm not sure which one is most unlikely.