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If you read my post I said "or any other operator". It is too easy to sit on the sidelines & critisise & my personal view is that if you haven't been there & done it yourself then you shouldn't critisise. Constructive comments is a different matter though & I'm sure everyone welcomes them.

Well Andy my point was regarding Volant's repute NOT Sunny Travels. It has also happened to other operators I know of.
As for critisising Sunny Travel (or any other operator), unless you have owned or even tried to own your own bus operation then your opinion doesn't mean a toss.
Oh & for your information the company is registered with the FTA who independantly inspect the vehicles & have passed the vehicles maintenance standards. As for the timetable an independant monitor has been out a couple of weeks ago & gave us 96% reliability NXWM 95% reliability & Claribels 80% reliability.
Not that I have to answer to the likes of you

I'm with Michael, there was nothing wrong with the old system & I thought it was pretty well worked out & a system other cities could look up to with envy.
You knew where you were with it, if you wanted a bus in Wolverhampton you looked for a 5XX and so on.
I guess we all knew which way it was going when the Solihull S prefix was introduced.

I would be surprised if they had benn bought by Volant as Volant just act as a middle man for Rotala sales.
Volant however are not a company I would ever trust again, Sunny Travel arranged to purchase 2 Darts off them & even paid a deposit before Volant decided to raise the price (to almost double) stating that "it's not our fault, Rotala want more money from them" .they then arranged the sale that had been agreed to include 3 different darts. Having checked with Rotala 2 of the three had already been purchased by a different buyer direct from Rotala & the third was not for sale & indeed is still in service with them now.

The 16 & 50 are both being operated by Blue Diamond @ Aston. The Versas @ Nifty Fifty centros have been transferred to Aston (well most of them at least)
As I have said before my contact @ Aston has said the 50s are taking an average of just £75 a day with the 16s taking less than that.
It does appear that Rotala are giving their unprofitable routs to Aston, maybe their operational costs are lower than Tividale

Although the registration says the 16 & 50 transfer to Blue Diamond in December, the reality is that it happened @ the beginning of this week.
With many contacts @ blue diamond their takings on the 50 are terrible (around £75 a day)
With the 16 takings not much better.
With revenue like that one has to wonder how long diamond will keep these services

It isn't council yak money wasted as it is upto the operator to pay the costs for @ stop timetables & stop flags

Since the 10 is less than 3 buses per hour the emission rule does not effect this route & they can use whatever low floor they want

Claribels i think offer a fantastic competition on a number of services. Examples in my view that competition can work.

But noone ever seems to say anything when their buses run early. Today for example their 09:25 from chelmsley 71e departed @ 09:20, their 09:45 71e left chelmsley @ 09:40 neither of these ram into marston green station or Solihull station as per their registration!!!

Just because someone has decent buses does not make them a decent operator.
Oh before someone comments their buses have trackers on them which can be viewed in real time from the office, the management just don't bother with early running to busy with the coaches

From what a blue diamond driver told me it, they are getting the hybrid versas for the 16