(26 Feb 2025, 12:08 pm)MurdnunoC wrote I don't think it would save money as you'd still need to recruit a swathe of engineers to work at whichever depot being used to outsource the work, as well as the operational headache of trying to allocate buses to operate on the nearest route to that depot in an attempt to eliminate any additional lost mileage.

Keeping depots open in the evening is a quite sensible decision to take, from both an operational and engineering perspective. The PVR is reduced so, theoretically, it becomes easier to swap vehicles at bus stations for drivers to take back to the depot, and engineers can catch them upon their return to address faults and perform routine maintenance. So it makes more sense to keep multiple depots open in the evening, rather than trying to cram everything into one, where pits or ramps may not be available to do any work required.

Yeah that's true can't disagree tbh.

I know from an operational stand point it would be completely stupid but I'm surprised there hasn't been an operator which hasn't gone even further and centralised all it's maintenance in one depot yet. Would definitely save the pennies for the pen pushers in an office. They're not exactly a million miles away from it now anyway.

The industry is a right mess really with too many cost cuts and they've pushed the limit now hence the mess GNE and others are in as Arriva and Stagecoach aren't particularly much better. They've just got tons of spares so it's not as noticeable. I wouldn't want to even count how many spares Slatyford have currently, for example.