(20 Feb 2022, 9:40 am)L469 YVK wrote Would Arriva not want to use the same vehicle type on the 306 & 308 though? As it stands, you'd be correct if they remained standalone. The 308 for timekeeping and suitable layovers would need a PVR of 8 and the 306 would need a PVR of 7.

A PVR drop from 18 to 15 vehicles is less than 20%. Now the 308 could 'just' run on a PVR of 7 if the Haymarket layover was reduced to 7 minutes, giving an extra minute to Blyth increasing it to 4 minutes. But if they wanted to make bigger savings whilst keeping suitable layovers, they'd need to eventually pull the 306 out Battle Hill Drive and keep both on the Coast Road. Interworking on a PVR of 14, they'd have the following layovers compared to current Monday-Friday frequency:

- Haymarket = 8 minutes (same as 308 currently gets and an extra minute for 306)
- Whitley Bay (306) = 5 minutes (same as current half-hourly 306 runs to Whitley Bay get)
- Blyth (308) = 13 minutes (same as 308 currently gets)

Not forgetting that if the 308 ran standalone with a PVR of 8 and didn't interwork with the 306, a round trip would be 2hr 40m. That would limit driving hours as 2x round trips would push it close to the 5hr 30m limit. Interworking the 306 & 308 with the 306 taken out of Battle Hill but still serving Whitley Bay would be a 4hr 40m round trip.

And for the work that the 306 & 308 do, E400MMCs are too heavy duty. StreetDecks would be more than ample.

It would be better ideally but whatever happens there's going to be a split allocation somewhere and arguably the 306/308 would be the best one there.

My thinking behind it eventually you'll end up with:

Blyth: DB300 / Enviro 400 MMC / Streetlite
Ashington: Pulsar / Enviro 400 / Enviro 400 MMC / Solo
Jesmond (Walkergate): Pulsar / Enviro 200 MMC

Argubly next in line for replacement would be the DB300's anyway so you'd start to get all of Blyth's depots an Enviro 400 MMC fleet. Otherwise your going to end up with classic Enviro 400's operating random boards on the X7/X8/X9/X10/X11 at Blyth since there's no space for Pulsars and they need Deckers or sending shagged Enviro's from Ashington which need to be a lesser role imo.

Btw wouldn't the round trip for the 308 just be 4 hours 55 mins or so, just depends how you do the layovers really - I do believe they'll interwork though eventually with a PVR 15 though when it moves.

Blyth -> Newcastle (1 Hour 5 Mins) - 7.5 Min Layover
Newcastle -> Blyth (1 Hour 5 Mins) - 22.5 Min Layover
Blyth -> Newcastle (1 Hour 5 Mins) - 7.5 Min Layover
Newcastle -> Blyth (1 Hour 5 Mins) - end of shift (22.5 layover with no staff).

Eventually I think it'll be roughly

Blyth -> Newcastle (1 Hour 6 Mins) - 10 Min Layover
Newcastle -> Whitley Bay (1 Hour 2 Mins) - 16 Min Layover
Whitley Bay -> Newcastle (1 Hour 2 Mins) - 10 Min Layover
Newcastle -> Blyth (1 Hour 6 Mins) - end of shift (8 Min Layover)

Just worked it out there's not much more you can do with keeping the buses every 10 minutes in both directions.