RE: Go North East: Latest News & Discussion - July 2017
(13 Jul 2017, 7:01 am)GuyParkRoyal wrote If Go North East have to allocate 6134, 6135,& 6140 to the 21 then to be fair in meeting customer expectations these vehicles should be fitted with WiFi and decent seat covering.
When I use the Arriva X12 if they have replaced the the allocated vehicle with a B7 ALX 400 I don't hear passengers complaining that they are getting an old ex London Bus. I suspect that when customers get the same quality seating and WiFi they remain satisfied and probably don't even notice that they have a different vehicle.
Go North East could easily stop all this noise about spare vehicles on the Angel by investing some of the fares increase in a few WiFi units and a new set of seat coverings for 6140.
To be honest, I don't think there is a great deal of "noise" outside of this forum. Allocations to the 21 service have been a hot topic on this forum for a long time (oh how we miss gtom!) - this isn't a 'new' thing, and goes to show that at a PVR of 17, you can always expect at least one, even possibly two, branded buses to be off the road. If/when the service receives an upgrade, I would imagine two spare vehicles would be ordered as part of the investment.
Red spares have actually formed part of the PVR on the TEN for a considerable amount of time now (not just covering for the branded buses which are unfit for service like the Angel), but we don't see regular comments about this? Surely this is worse?
I'm not saying it is right in either case, and do agree that the investment into more appropriate spare vehicles is something which ought to be considered, but perhaps there is already a plan in the works... I notice
6141 was fitted with Wi-Fi last year, as was
6146. Both of these were also re-trimmed, prior to entry into service. This was all done in the interests of improving customer expectations of the service, when a fleet livery bus is allocated in lieu of their branded bus.
Although Arriva may have appropriate substitutions available at Durham on the X12 service, this doesn't always apply at other locations... Yesterday, I had a pleasant journey on service 23 to Peterlee followed by a connection to the X9 service to Middlesbrough. I arrived, more or less on time, and had a 10-minute connection to the X93 service to Whitby. To my horror, one minute before scheduled departure, a Temsa Avenue rocks up on the stand. This certainly wasn't a comfy 'MAX' branded double-decker, and meant that some customers couldn't sit down on their journey. No Wi-Fi was available (as advertised), either. I had an hour in Whitby before catching the Transdev Coastliner 840 service. I travelled to Whitby to make the 11:00 service from here, as this service was advertised in the timetable to be operated by a new high-spec Coastliner bus. Oh how I was disappointed, when an older Volvo B9TL with less-comfy seats arrived... We passed two services en-route to York: an 840 and an X40. Looking in the timetable, both of these services were scheduled to be allocated an older Coastliner bus. Certainly a case of 'look what you could have won', when the 840 service was allocated one of the new fancy-pants double-decks... Perhaps it's not just Go North East who fall down in this respect, eh?
