(20 Jun 2024, 12:56 pm)Coastliner700 wrote Don’t get me started on that! Apart from the two school runs it carry’s fresh air. I was on Shields Road two E200s one on 22 full and standing and another on 12 similar story then two 18s both less than 10 people on them
Actually, the 18 can get pretty busy outside school times. Saturdays especially. Late evening services too with Freeman Hospital staff leaving work.
You also need to understand, ever since Nexus started paying to run it, they've made deckers a requirement. If Stagecoach still had it commercially, it would probably still have the old allocation (2x E300's and 1x E400).
It's the 18's timetable we want to be focusing on, rather than the allocation. In order to keep on time, you need to speed and not let a single person on. Especially with slow MMC's being allocated on weekends. Evening and Sundays you only get 28 minutes each way with a 2-3 minute sit at either end, and bare in mind the last two trips from Four Lane Ends are an extra 2 minutes longer having to serve BT Call Centre where nobody gets on (and BT actually fund the 18 to serve the roundabout on the last two trips for their invisible cleaners to get home).
The evening trips, however, should be ran by single deckers. The evening runs are the same driver the entire night, with the driver actually starting from the depot (except weekends, where they change drivers at Byker Metro at around half 7pm), so the evening driver should bring out a single decker.