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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.

Service 45 has been retendered (early and late Mon - Sat journeys) and Sunday timetable following a commercial registration of the daytime service

Probably old news but I've not come across it before, but TfWM are stating that adult fares must not exceed £2.70 and child fares must not exceed £1.50.

Is this the new fare structure from the end of October? (Unless any government funding gets extended).

Silly question, but presumably Coventry have enough fleet capacity for this? Currently bustimes shows around 10 vehicles on the road at the moment.

Was this always factored into the electrics order, or will the cascade of SDs slow to free up more DDs for this route? I guess that this is also one of the highest mileage routes an electric would cover in one day, so be interesting to see range limitations (if any) here.

Some rough maths,

A round trip is around 50 miles and takes 3 hours.

If range is around 200 miles (not sure on exact range but would imagine it's around 200), that means 4 trips or 12 hours.

*wikipedia says 160 miles range, so if that's true as I'm sure the range will vary on type of work, that would mean 3 round trips or 9 hours.

How are hydrogen powered vehicles performing elsewhere in the UK?

There's a batch in Aberdeen, if I recall correctly.

So in theory (looking at the current weekday timetable) what I suggest could be possible?

With a slightly rejigged timetable, a driver could start duty from Pool Meadow just after midnight, drive to Birmingham, then do the 'shorts' to the Airport and back, then return to Coventry just after 4am, and that would be legal?

4 hours driving stint? Yeah it's legal.

Looking at the current timetable, depending on how long drivers are allowed to drive without a lengthy break, I would guess it feasible to have one duty begin at Coventry, do the last evening 'full run' to Birmingham, then do the couple of shorts to/from the Airport, before returning to Coventry on the 'first' morning run.

I guess it all depends on how well those overnight shorts are used, if the patronage isn't there then the opportunity could be taken to withdraw them.

The other possibility is that BC continue to operate those.

5.5 hours is the legal maximum driving time without a break.

Could have, seems short for a contract though, they only had it back in January

The tender that went out in January was for 43 weeks (till 28th October 2023).

Couple more tenders gone out this afternoon. 👀

20/21 (Bearwood)
71 (Sundays only)

What is AGRA? 

Where I work, we use Zeelo (you scan M Tickets with a work phone). 

The issues are usually either when sunlight is shining onto the windscreen and then onto the passengers phone screen when they're trying to scan or the other issue is when passengers have got their screen brightness turned down, and it's therefore more difficult for the scanner to pick up the QR code.

It'll be the same principle with the NX scanners, no doubt.

I can imagine screen protectors would be an issue when they're dirty or because of sunlight reflection.

Cummins specific but I imagine it's similar across the board.

Scenario 1:
When the vehicle runs out of Adblue (something which I reckon is very rare at NX), power is restricted, so it's slow accelerating but will eventually reach speed limits.

Scenario 2:
When the vehicle is switched off during a regen (there's usually a warning on the dash indicating that exhaust temperatures are hot when this is taking place), the vehicle when restarted may fall into Limp mode, resulting in the vehicle hardly moving (restricted to between 8-15km/h.)

A common cause for Limp Mode is DPFs getting clogged up with soot and being unable to "regen." . I doubt it's specific to 66 or 68 reg etc. 

It needs the council and the police regularly going there and enforcing the parking restrictions in place. They could rake in a fortune in fines down there, and the money could be well spent on bollards or railings next to the park to stop people half-parking on the pavement.

There's a video going around of 2 parking wardens getting battered in Sparkbrook today. Perhaps they just stay away from certain areas..?

It wasn't @Trainbasher or whatever his name is these days, was it?

I'm fairly sure Tony has said that the contract between Zenobe and NX essentially says that Zenobe must provide X amount of vehicles available for service, hence why there were 8 spares in the first place.

Perhaps this is a rotation to average out usage/mileage of the vehicles, and those that have/are being rotated may end up elsewhere..?

So with the exception of 4770 and 6966 - which while still at Coventry awaiting repairs won't be used in public service - the first landmark has been reached with Coventry having a 100% electric double-deck fleet.

E157 was being towed by a recovery truck this evening. If that's a breakdown, it's the first electric breakdown I've seen.