(29 May 2025, 7:08 am)L469 YVK wrote See, I think GNE do need to keep investing though despite franchising possibly happening.
Other than the EV's (subsidised of course), GNE haven't invested in any new vehicles since the 2019-20 financial year regardless of delivery date. The last new diesel vehicles being the x15 E400MMC originally for the X1 (+1 for the X30) before the fleet was swapped around.
GNE have had 5 clear financial years to get back into good health since the 2020-21 financial year. Demand is returning in quite a lot of instances. I don't think GNE will go all out and do 100+ vehicle orders in a year like seen in the past. But wouldn't be unreasonable to expect 30-40 new vehicles per year.
Even known they probably should, I just can't see it.
Why bother investing up here when you're going to lose it and it's not very profitable anyway. Alternatively, you could invest in somewhere like Brighton or Oxford which are very profitable areas and there's no plans for franchising, at all, and displace those buses to other areas ie. up here.
Those two have had massive investment aswell, imo they'll be doing the bare minimum to scrape through up here, hence the lack of investment anyway.