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Messages - AlexS

#1
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
May 12, 2024, 10:17:44 PM
Quote from: Glenfieldmathk1 on May 12, 2024, 09:38:30 PMCorrect.
Although it's expected a further order for 127 & 5/5A will be made imminently following the next round of funding (which will also see pretty much all Loughborough going electric, except for sky, midland Diamond & the few Centrebus routes).
It's also thought the 148/158 corridor could be going electric too (thanks to Warwick receiving a share of the fund.. although not sure if yet officially confirmed or just early speculation).
The Stagecoach 148 should be going electric within the next few months, as far as I know Arriva had no part in that bid and there are no plans for the 158 to follow.
On the topic of the 4401/4402 transfers to Leicester I would have thought it would have made far more sense for these to have gone to Merseyside with Leicester instead retaining 4531/4532 to give both areas a more uniform fleet.
#2
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
April 20, 2024, 11:13:04 PM
Quote from: joieman on April 20, 2024, 09:18:56 PMLeicester seems to have overall lost buses in the past few years. Looking at Bustimes on the Wayback Machine, there were 174 buses at Arriva in Leicestershire in March 2023; today there are only 165. I think this is mainly due to the DB250s being progressively withdrawn without adequate replacements being brought in.
Based on the current plans it is looking like the longer term idea is for Leicester to have 162/163 buses (I assume 162 as I don't see one solitary Olympus staying despite the rumours so far talking about 12 leaving) including 1008 which isn't used in public service and 4 coaches for the X6. Given Leicester has an approximate PVR of 150 at a quick count and a lot of the fleet will still be on the verge of life expired this seems like a disaster waiting to happen as it gives approximately a 7.5% maximum rate of unavailability before services have to be cancelled which gives very little room for any issues.
#3
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
April 20, 2024, 11:27:38 AM
Quote from: Magikrabby on April 19, 2024, 11:26:11 PMDo we know which E400s these will be? If it's 2 of the YY14s then it doesn't seem like too bad of a swap, but my instinct is telling me it will be the SN58 "spares" in the max livery.

I presume that once all the electroliners are in service, all that will be left will be the 2 B9TL Geminis and all the Enviro400s, with all the DB250s getting withdrawn and the Olympuses transferring like you said. If my calculations are correct this will mean thurmaston will have 77 deckers - will that be enough for a day's service?
Probably not but insufficient deckers has been an ongoing problem for many years at this point. The bigger question is that with the 50/51 and 47/48 being the more regular routes to substitute with smaller buses whether the electroliners end up off route regularly or whether the impact of smaller vehicles is moved onto other routes.
#4
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
April 06, 2024, 12:35:11 PM
Either the electrics are entering service in the next few days or we are entering a period of mass cancellations due to a shortage of buses. 
#5
First / Re: First Bus - Leicester
February 22, 2024, 08:38:49 PM
Also in Leicester (at least as of yesterday lunchtime) was 63623 Sean heading down Narborough Road with no front registration plate attached.
#6
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
February 09, 2024, 10:27:32 AM
Quote from: Glenfieldmathk1 on February 08, 2024, 04:50:51 PMCould it be these ticket machines might move into the new vehicles?
Would be a logical guess but why would the machine in 4547 be the one going into 8001 unless the plan is now for that batch to be leaving?
#7
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
January 20, 2024, 09:10:23 PM
Quote from: Pscar05 on January 20, 2024, 01:43:01 PMI reported it as withdrawn due to the fact of its blocked in by large containers. They may need to sort it out though now apparently we are not able to have the electric busses due to planning problems with the ports (seen on Instagram the land owner isn't allowing the electric chargers to be installed)
You'd be perfect for a job at Arriva if you think reinstating one 15 year old solo would be adequate to cover for 24 brand new deckers no longer coming.
If there is any truth in the story they'd be having to look at getting a substantial batch of nearly new or at absolute worst case scenario midlife deckers transferred in from a depot that could accommodate the electrics rather than trying to fix a solitary end of life solo.
#8
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
December 12, 2023, 08:15:29 PM
4428 appears to be the first of the next batch from Liverpool to enter service. Seen earlier on the 47 with the front display stuck on reversing.
#9
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
December 05, 2023, 07:40:29 PM
And yet again the buses from Leicester go immediately into service on arrival whilst those from Merseyside are not fit for service.
At the very least the buses from Leicester should not be departing until after those that are replacing them are ready to enter service (as a much bigger operation Merseyside could manage with a few less vehicles for a couple of weeks much easier than Leicester).
#10
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
December 02, 2023, 10:16:48 AM
Quote from: Glenfieldmathk1 on December 02, 2023, 08:38:49 AMI have noticed bus times is being a little glitchy the past few days. Unless you've seen them in person broken down then chances are they actually haven't (even if it's stopped tracking on bus times!).
In those particular cases the running boards were either taken over by different vehicles for subsequent journeys or periods of not in service running were recorded from the location of the breakdown several hours later following the breakdown so it's safe to say the vehicles were not still in service.
#11
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
November 30, 2023, 09:18:08 AM
Another day and another 2 breakdowns on the 50/51 by 07:30 in addition to 2 boards not even starting the day.
For 3 out of 9 buses (with the other breakdown following two consecutive cancellations being covered by a bus that would often end up leaving people behind even with a full service in operation and that has had to be nicked from another route causing cancellations elsewhere) to be missing from a route by 07:30 in the morning is absolutely unacceptable and quite frankly whoever is in charge of allocations needs to be fired as they are clearly not capable of allocating suitable buses to routes.
#12
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
November 28, 2023, 07:21:11 PM
 Both 4433 and 4434 (and 4432 also went out of service for a couple of hours misroute although this could have been for cleaning or driver hours etc) appear to have broken down by mid morning today along with the normal helping of DB250 breakdowns and other boards being missing entirely. Quite honestly at this point an independent operator would be up in front of the traffic commissioner especially given they are in the process of replacing reliable midlife vehicles with life expired  unreliable ones.
Clearly replacing any more of 4418-4425 or 4529-4535 which are typically relied upon to be in service 7 days a week every week and make up a substantial proportion of the fleet that can be relied upon with life expired wrecks from elsewhere that cannot last a day in service is not going to work and any future transfers need to be put on hold until a more suitable replacement vehicles can be found.
On a slightly different note it is also completely unacceptable that local councils have the authority to make decisions that boost services in their area whilst obliterating them elsewhere.
#13
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
October 02, 2023, 05:29:35 PM
Yet another DB250 break down on the 50 today. It would probably be more worthy of comment if one of them managed an entire day on the 50/51 circuit without breaking down at this point.
Clearly there is something about the route that isn't agreeing with the buses so it's about time Arriva accepted reality as allocated them elsewhere until they finally manage to rid themselves of them.
Not only this but terrible allocation has seen the board behind the breakdown allocated a single passengers so not only are passengers delayed due to a bus not turning up but they are unable to board the subsequent service due to a lack of capacity. If Thurmaston have to allocate saloons to decker routes the least they could do is allocate reliable deckers (4552-4579 would appear to be the best option) to the boards either side to ensure passengers aren't being doubly inconvienienced.
#14
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
August 08, 2023, 10:11:34 PM
Quote from: SSmith09 on August 07, 2023, 06:07:00 PMNew timetables can be found on the actual service page by scrolling down to the bottom

Looking at most its small adjustments but service 51 is losing most of the later evening buses to add a short 50 working to Fosse Park 😞

Hinckley changes are listed including the withdrawal of local services 1 & 2
Not sure those timetables are entirely accurate. Somehow I don't see that the actual plan is for the X84 to be running 2 journeys 5 minutes apart each hour.
#15
Arriva / Re: Arriva Leicester
July 15, 2023, 04:11:40 PM
Quote from: Fin W on July 15, 2023, 02:07:53 PM3791 has apparently transferred from Telford to replace them
Which is absolutely pointless given they already have an excess of saloons and a shortage of deckers.
Hinckley is currently down to one decker (with 3778 covering) which will work over the summer but as soon as the schools go back there are two boards on the X84 which need deckers and multiple Thurmaston services are regularly seeing saloons on diagrams which can see people left behind (and that's before considering the increasing unreliability of the remaining B7s and B9s meaning it is far from unusual to have journeys missed either side of the smaller bus).

At the very least they need to have a look at the allocation policy in operation so that boards either side of reduced capacity services are allocated the most reliable vehicles in the fleet and the less reliable vehicles are constrained to services where missing buses have less impact on passengers or where it is easier to source replacement vehicles. 
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