(02 Apr 2014, 8:28 pm)robisdave15 wrote I know I'm in Arriva land here but just have to compare the TTX X9/10 and now X7 against the X93? Yes the TTX struggled for somewhere but has established itself and the promotion/reliability afforded to the services by GNE is now being rewarded; investment in the B9TL's was a masterstroke. Here on the X93 it would be a risk to seriously promote the service has it has suffered for years with a mish mash of vehicles, inappropriate or otherwise; not only that the majority of services on the route are operated by vehicles based and maintained at s depot some 20 miles away from the principal operating area. When we have vehicles operating on the route as reliable as what they are, sitting at the roadside on some desolate roadside waiting for a replacement vehicle/engineer to turn out is not really the best advertisement!
Then we had, or have the overcrowding issues to deal with? Again not the best way of promoting a service by shoehorning passengers on to an elderly Prestige or even worse, MOD! Why the management at Arriva take the attitude "we can't run extra vehicles", beats me; then there is the other attitude of not being able to provide replacement vehicles to cover breakdowns? Just take a bus of the 27's, not really gonna be missed, surely?
Now we're about to start the new peak season with a collection of vehicles that are already proving to be unreliable....!