(09 Mar 2024, 10:20 am)Storx wrote I never mentioned engineering, more issues of vehicle shortages, in general.Arguably for the 306/308, if the Coast Road was cleaned up more (with further route changes)......Arriva take on all the Blyth - Whitley Bay - Newcastle work (effectively the current 308 & 309) and likewise, GNE take on all the North Shields, Tynemouth, Marden work (effectively the current 306 & 307). Arriva would lose around a PVR of 4-5, but also lose a lot of dead mileage. That would help with Arriva's issues.
The 434/57/57A is one of the biggest problems at Ashington as there's not enough minibuses so it's taking saloons and deckers which is leaving them short. I'm not even sure what's meant to be running the 57/57A because nothing came up for the Bedlington extension and 2601-3 are totally inadequate.
Blyth's the bigger problem though since they gained the 43/44/45/306 work and got some totally inappropiate Pulsar's capacity wise and some Enviro's which urgently need to be on some easy route not what they are on - ironically buses that Redcar destroyed (as usual). They're very lucky imo that the 15 year old DB300's are little work horses or they've got a good engineering team who look after them as they've not really had the easiest of lives.
But Arriva are yet to see the impact of the ABTRL.