(20 Sep 2014, 6:47 pm)Dan wrote Go-Ahead will know what spare percentage of vehicles is most appropriate - not only do they want to save money, but they don't want to lose mileage (which in turn causes a lower customer satisfaction rate).
Go North East, like all other companies in the Go-Ahead Group, has targets to meet for lost mileage, as set by Go-Ahead. The individual companies will know the reasons why they are incurring lost mileage, and if lost mileage is being incurred due to no resources being available, the issue will be highlighted and raised in an executive Operations Meeting with Go-Ahead, which will allow the opportunity for individual companies to discuss the issue and make the appropriate changes in the fleet to ensure that it's less likely to happen again in the future.
There's often a fine line though. Cutting runs with 'low usage' arguably causes a lower customer satisfaction rate (or people on to other forms of transport), but companies claim this is because it's not 'financially viable'. There's a hundred and one ways to prevent lost mileage, but if it's costing a company more than it's worth, then it'll sharp be thrown out as not financially viable.
Probably why on the two occasions I mentioned above, the 50 I was travelling on was not replaced. Neither were at peak times, so buses being out on scholars/works duties couldn't come in to the reasoning.
Like I say though, it's all good and well if it's not at the detriment of the customer. I'm sure a company the size of GNE is capable of managing that expectation...