(12 Nov 2014, 10:34 pm)tyresmoke wrote I fail to see the business sense in having a £100k vehicle sat doing nothing... However I can't help but feel Stagecoach have failed here - there are fully depreciated Tridents at Stockton they could use. They are accessible to disabled people unlike the Olympians. There is no stipulation in the contract with the school contract (that Stockton's double decks are used on) for low floor buses and therefore using an extra Olympian for a couple of weeks would not be a huge issue.

I didn't realise that Stockton's scholar contracts did not stipulate whether the vehicles had to be high or low floor; as you quite rightly point out, an Alexander ALX400 could have easily transferred instead, with the Olympian going back to Stockton... Adds insult to injury, really.

Regarding the business sense comment - I did point out that allocated spare branded vehicles are becoming a thing of the past for that very reason. For Go North East, corporate liveried spare vehicles to the same specification as the branded ones being opted for instead, and I have suggested in the past that this is a much better way of dealing with things, as then your branded vehicles (especially those which are of a premium brand) aren't being allocated to other services...