I think the double-decker bus with the longest range now is the BYD BD11, which has a claimed range of around 400 miles.
That photo says it all! Conventional wisdom would be not to stand in the middle of the road to take a photo, so if the buses are really going that slowly then things must be very bad indeed!
Oh yes, maybe NCT should conduct trials with one when a demo becomes available
Certainly on my local route (with substantial hills) there is a bus which leaves the depot around 06.15 and doesn't return until 23.30, and it's regularly a Streetdeck Electroliner. Passenger wise the current Ulsterbus Streetdecks seat 71, compared to 74 for the equivalent diesel vehicle. Two of those seats are accounted for by the change from 5 to 4 for the 2 back rows.
What I believe they were saying here is, if the roadworks stay in the terrible state they are in now, it will greatly impact bus patronage and single-handedly cause the network to go into decline. It's part of the pressure on the council to fix the issues, which were causing some buses to take an hour to get from Canning Circus to Maid Marian Way, which should take around 2 mins.
There used to be a Maroon Line which was withdrawn years ago
Do the extra buses mentioned explain the apparent shortages elsewhere on the network that we were discussing a page or two back?
Yes, the 13 and 14 (or was it the 12?). But probably not the best name for a bus route...
And the short lived Sand Line in the early 00s!
The First Leeds Overground had Claret Line, Magenta Line, Olive Line, Beige Line, Light Green Line and Peach Line so if NCT was to expand, there are many colours to go at.And the short lived Sand Line in the early 00s!
I suppose there's the rabbit hole of using colours like Mangenta, Teal or Beige...! There's also the option to take inspiration from B&Q paint colours, then they could use Golden Ivory or Fennel White
And white is effectively taken as that's the colour of the Omnidekka driver training buses.
I think this is open to interpretation, if they were genuinely short of buses and things were being missed then that would only [really] be noticed by those customers waiting for them. The fact they have "incorrect" buses on some routes suggests there are enough buses, just some challenges.
To be fair, I said struggling for availability, which I feel was an accurate reflection. On the whole NCT keep branded buses where they need to be so that week was certainly unusual. Things seem to have returned to normal now, except for the city centre congestion of course. I spoke to someone that walked home from Victoria Centre to Bilbrough(!) the other night, and she said she was expecting to see some 28s come past her on her walk but she didn’t!
Definitely agree. I think sometimes the good operators (like NCT) will sometimes almost draw attention to themselves by using a wrongly branded bus but ultimately running the service whereas if they'd just missed it (as per some other operators) then enthusiasts wouldn't notice.
Exactly! Running the service is the most important, and wrong route branding makes for some good photo opportunities.
What euro rating do the Scania OmniDekkas have? (The younger Scania E400s too)
I suppose there's also the question of what is coming into the fleet to allow newer vehicles to cascade onto the 4.
Euro 6
To be fair, I think all operators would do that. I don’t think any would cancel a journey when they had a bus/driver available just because the bus was the wrong colour.
Agreed, just making the point that if something doesn't run people don't generally notice unless they're waiting for it, but nowadays with the obsessive viewing of bustimes.org (or in this case the NCT app tracking) etc it's more widely seen.
I’m with you when it comes to bus times. Excellent website and tool but the idea of staying ‘no service on x route this afternoon’ or ‘half of the buses on route x missing’ purely based on nothing tracking is crazy to me.
Exactly! Unfortunately it's all too common now. Maybe I'm just getting old and look back on the days when you had to actually go out and be surprised to see things!
Also an E400 on the Green 8s and 9s too, although not all day like 471 was.
I really hope this happens, as it would make so much sense. My friends and I were complaining why they didn't just keep the 45 and 46 numbers (45 going to the same place and 46 going to Calverton) and just axe the 47... but now that you've made this point it sounds so much more cohesive
Is it tracking as anything?
