(08 Mar 2014, 6:33 pm)Roland Pratt wrote Well I'm glad you think so. I don't think many passengers who used the X93 last year will agree with you.

Is there another source of revenue other than passengers? The X93s are virtually all commercial aren't they, or will be very shortly.

There are other sources of revenue, though I would agree none are X93-specific.

The X93 does have some income from council funding for non-commercial trips, although NYCC are cutting this at the end of April. Redcar also fund some diversions into Moorsholm village to enable residents there to have a bus service to Middlesbrough and Guisborough at peak travelling times of the day.

There can be no denying that the operation of the service by the Enviro 400s during summer 2013 has been subject to serious issues and lost mileage has been way too high! The reliability won't help with the passenger experience and therefore there needs to be investment put into the service if we are to improve it in the future.

However there needs to be questions asked when it comes to the engineering ability. After all the same batch of vehicles (7501-4 anyway) operated on the service in summer 2012 season without any major issues, so why was 2013 so bad? Two more were brought in at short notice to try and give a decent vehicle availability for the high peak.

Therefore there has been a push to find an alternative vehicle for the summer 2014 season, with the VDL DB300 (namely 7624) and now the Volvo B7TLs arriving (indeed 7494 [LF02PLJ] is the first to arrive at Redcar) to be trialled on X93 over the next few weeks. I am told there is some pushing from higher up to use them full time on the X93 but if major issues are shown during the operation over the next few weeks then they will have to look at other options.

I have mentioned the Volvo B9TL vehicles at our Yorkshire division, but the same problem exists there in that they are a specific batch of vehicles operating on the 202/203 routes between Leeds, Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Unfortunately even if a trial could be sorted between the two, if they became proven then I am sure any attempt to move some will be highly fought by Yorkshire.