(24 Sep 2014, 12:48 pm)Andreos1 wrote Sorry to keep harping on about this. Sad as it sounds, I find the whole set up for the service quite interesting.
Yeah, I get the varying shift patterns - but if a car park is full for the majority of the day from early morning, the chances of it emptying enough to justify a decker operating every 15mins, is slim to nil.
The fact the 35a can leave Rainton Bridge carrying nowt but the driver (operating a 20min frequency) and the 20a can whizz through and not stop at all - ditto the the 923, tells me all there is to know about shift patterns and demands for public transport over the course of the day.
In addition, since Monday, I have seen 6100 four times (it may have been 6099 today, never noticed the fleet id), and I have seen no more than 1 passenger on board the bus (all at varying times of the day) on each of those occasions.
Granted, it will get a lot busier than that.
Also, there are two more 'restriction/advisory' road signs on the route - which I hadn't noted previously.
One prior to the left hand turn onto Black Boy Road and one on the entrance to Black Boy Road.
However, to turn this into a positive!
Demand for P&R will be higher today than previously - if only because of the huge crane parked outside NPower, offering bungee jumps. Not sure how many car parking spaces that is taking up, but it is a few!
Enjoying the craic on the npower p&R route from Chilton Country Pub to Rainton Bridge. To put a bit of perspective into the discussion, the site was picked by npower and the route has been fully risk assessed before the operation started as well as the car park at Chilton. That process included looking at the bridge and the weight limit is 40 tons, so no problem for a bus, regardless of size. Since my last moan on Black Boy Road, its been resurfaced and widened slightly too, plus its got a centre line for the first time in the 14 years I've known the road. There's been a bit of tree pruning done as well so that double deckers can be used. The yellow warning signs are to persuade HGV's, particularly artics, not to use Black Boy Road as a rat run to get to the A1 at Chester-le-Street - they need to face the FPF and pray for safe passage.
The vehicle size is at the request of the customer and it may well change in the next few weeks once the service settles down. The timetable may change too - it's all down to the customer. There's another 400 plus people moving from Peterlee to Rainton Bridge from next week, so its busy times at Rainton Bridge and the aim is to increase usage on the 20A, 35A & 921-923 etc as well as having the p&r sites.
Lets see if the second p&r site provokes as much reaction when it starts next Monday - eyes peeled boys and girls!!!