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Single or double deck?

Oxford bus 702 is a double deck Electroliner

There's been an Oxford Bus Wright bodied decker around the Midlands. Seen one on the A45 around Tyseley last week. Didn't catch ID, but it had the green marker on the number plate so was Zero Emission.

It looked like this:
https://flic.kr/p/2pgsFj1

Not sure if this is true seen a post on facebook so taking it with a very large pinch of salt

Someone posted about a bus driver been fined yesterday on the bus station for leave engine running on the bus.

Fined by who?

I recall another alternative.

Several years ago Solent Blue Line contracted the operation of a couple of its commercial Southampton routes to an independent: Marchwood Motorways.  I didn't see it in action myself, but I think that Solent Blue Line provided the vehicles, which were in its livery, and the routes were advertised as Solent Blue Line routes.  The arrangement lasted for a number of years.

Could it work in the West Midlands now?  As well as taking on the same quality standards as NX, a willing operator would need to have enough drivers ... so I think not.

I think a significant factor of unpopularity with working for NX is their (in my opinion) over the top management. Whilst there will be those who defend them on this very forum, I do think subcontracting certain services could work well for NX; those services that have a fair bit of dead mileage from the depot. So in other words, driving NX services but not subject to their driver policies. 

There was a similar arrangement in Bristol a few years ago where the Metrobus contract was awarded to First but they sub'd it out to CT Plus. The majority of the drivers were ex First. The ticket machines were all supplied by First and the ability to issue First tickets, but the management was CT Plus. It worked well, until the company collapsed (for other reasons).

Or perhaps it's pointless and one day the whole lot will be franchised out...

As there are less seats, how does their standing capacity compare to the Platinums?

Less seats for people to put their bags on? 

Within 8 years we've already lost 3 (potentially 4 now) E400 MMCs to fires. Hopefully the perpetrator is caught and harshly dealt with.

Have they all been arson? 

What services were they on, and when were these fires?

They are limited to 70kph as opposed to 80kph for platinum which makes a difference of a few seconds on the short stretch between Meridian and Allesley

Which was the point I was trying to get at.

70kph = 44mph
80kph = 50mph

There's a difference of 6mph, and the X1 is able to reach those speeds for a short section of the route, so as Tony has said it's a matter of a few seconds.

So that leaves the question of "popularity..."

Speed. The capacity issues have looked cosy all day and the seating arrangements on the lower deck aren't particularly popular from what i've seen.

What are they limited to speed wise? 

I'm assuming you're referring to the section on the A45 that's 60mph?

How have you determined that they're not popular? What does that even mean, not popular? Have you heard passengers complaining?

Kathleen Road, but stopped at Deakins Road which it doesn't call at.

Frustrated people too I've seen most the day, most aren't happy with the EV's layout and I've seen a fair amount of rammed ones during the day. I personally don't think they are suited to the X1 at all.

Why aren't they suited?

If there's capacity issues, this can be rectified by a frequency increase. In terms of the layout, what do you mean? Were all the seats taken? If so, was this not an occurrence before?

Yes and one of those companies has recently invested in 150+ new electric buses whilst the other has purchased ex-first streetsh*tes. There is more than one reason why this monopoly exists (and is a good thing for passengers!!!)

The fact that TfWM have opened up nBus and forced operators to withdraw their Own Tickets combined with the fact that passengers can't hop on and off any operators bus with their same contactless card and be capped at the nBus price is counter intuitive and doesn't actually benefit the passenger unless they've got a season ticket.

I wondered when you'd poke your anti Independant/Competitive opinion in. 

Maybe if passengers were simply able to board on any other operators vehicle and still be capped at nBus Day prices, you'd see operators like Diamond spending vast amounts on new fleets.

This reminds me of something I thought about a couple of weeks ago.

I know the current economic climate might not be quite right for bus operators to be taking commercial risks, but with the withdrawal of single-operator tickets/passes in lieu of the multi-operator nBus offerings, there has to be some opportunities somewhere for other bus operators to add journeys onto busier services.
I think the way to look at this is "complement, not compete" - NX clearly don't have the resources to put on extra journeys to increase capacity at busy times, so perhaps in collaboration with TfWM, other operators could be invited to register commercial services as a way of 'helping out'.
It's an idea that would need a bit more fleshing out, but it starts with the notion that passengers can use their ticket/pass on any operator's service now, so there is no longer that 'barrier' that hindered smaller operators from competing before on NX's commercial services.

This topic probably isn't the right place for a detailed discussion of this, but if there's interest then I'll split it off.

We talk about no more daysaver and it has been replaced by nBus and the opportunity to complement rather than compete etc, but what about the significant number of passengers who use their contactless card to hop on and off various NXWM buses who are unaware of the nBus ticket, and therefore wouldn't jump on, for example, a Diamond bus operating on the X21/22, using a different ticket machine.

NX still have the monopoly because of the ticketing hardware.

Just out of interest and curiosity,what at First planning to be running in Rochdale?

https://www.route-one.net/news/first-manchester-orders-mellor-strata-plus-for-bee-network/

They've placed an order for 17x Mellor Strata Plus, which of course are manufactured by Mellor who are also based in Rochdale.

They are in real trouble - watch this space

I topped up my shares today 👀

What's going to be covering the tendered parts of the 25 in bromford? E.g Collingbourne Ave... wasn't there the route that went out for tender which was Small Heath - castle vale via the fort?

It wasn't awarded

@John Stait,

None of those are noteworthy, Euro 6 Deckers on City Services.

None of the workings in this thread are noteworthy. Bus on bus service. 

It's all in the infrastructure. Proper bus lanes and priority at lights similar to the A45/Small Heath ASDA junction coming out of City.

I've driven the "Metrobus" in Bristol, which is a cross city service (North to South). And the majority of it is bus lanes, and it works. The other thing is Dual Door vehicles. They don't seem to be favoured out of London, but for a project like this they are far superior than conventional single door vehicles. The third thing they've done in Bristol is made the Metrobus cashless. Tap&Go and QR code multi use tickets. Loading and unloading is very quick. By having dual door vehicles, you find that passengers don't hang around the bottom of the stairs blocking passengers boarding, because the exit door is further back.