East Yorkshire Motor Services, now part of Go-Ahead

[YorkRailFan]

@YorkRailFan thanks I wasn't sure exactly what is run from Pocklington on a Sunday now, when I was based there a number of years ago there was the 746 as was and 18A on a Sunday

This summer just gone Pocklington also operated Wolds Explorer 200, DalesBus 822 and Moorsbus M5 & M8, increasing their PVR by 3 but year-round its just the 747 now, which only requires the 1 bus.

 

[EYFanatic]

Yes it was the last day, an awful ending to the season. EY really relied on York Pullman's M6, which regularly ended up taking stranded passengers to Pickering and Malton. Kudos to the Transdev guys in Malton for helping the man.

I seem to recall a few went on the M6 to York to get a bus from there home.

On that last day, nothing was arranged between EY and YP but luckily I knew the driver that day and he phoned me at the bar, told me the full story of what had happened and said he was going to go off his route, spin it round in the car park of the Lion Inn and pick up the people that had gone for meals there because quite a few had.

But yes, there is going to have to be a serious improvement over this year for next season

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Nov 2025 ==

This summer just gone Pocklington also operated Wolds Explorer 200, DalesBus 822 and Moorsbus M5 & M8, increasing their PVR by 3 but year-round its just the 747 now, which only requires the 1 bus.

Was there a reason why they only did the 822 this year and not the 875 (?) to Hawes as they've done in the past?

 

[YorkRailFan]

Was there a reason why they only did the 822 this year and not the 875 (?) to Hawes as they've done in the past?

I think the 876 from Leeds has become so popular that a second bus was needed hence the 875 being routed through West Yorkshire. I used the 875 quite a few times and it would be full and standing before Ilkley. As a result of this, the 822 did a few shuttles between Ripon and Grassington providing extra journeys for those in Grassington.

On that last day, nothing was arranged between EY and YP but luckily I knew the driver that day and he phoned me at the bar, told me the full story of what had happened and said he was going to go off his route, spin it round in the car park of the Lion Inn and pick up the people that had gone for meals there because quite a few had.

I was in Helmsley that day with some of the Moorsbus team phoning people left, right and centre to try and sort something out. A very stressful day for all involved.

 

[EYFanatic]

Aye, true enough

Well, lets hope next year is better

 

[stevieinselby]

Was there a reason why they only did the 822 this year and not the 875 (?) to Hawes as they've done in the past?

From past experience, there wasn't a huge demand for travel on the 822 beyond Grassington – whereas there was a lot more demand for travel from West Yorkshire, where having two buses up and down meant that people had more flexibility about how long they had at their destination. So, for both the 2024 and 2025 season, First Leeds ran the 876 from Seacroft to Hawes to supplement the Reliance/Transdev 875 running from York via Leeds to Hawes, with the East Yorkshire 822 only running to Grassington and giving connections for the smaller number of passengers wanting to travel through.
(I think even in 2023 when East Yorkshire ran the 876 themselves from York via Leeds, they ran that one through to Hawes with the 822 only running to Grassington, but I'm not completely sure).

 

[YorkRailFan]

I have received the following email from City of York Council as a response to my complaint regarding lack of communication and reliability from East Yorkshire:

All operators are struggling with punctuality due to seasonal traffic conditions at the moment.



Across the last two weeks, the data shows that East Yorkshire Buses have the highest reliability (% journeys operated) and second highest punctuality (% journeys on time) of any operator in the York area. I’m aware they’ve been short-staffed at an office level, which may explain any lack of responsiveness on their customer service side.



We encourage operators to mark cancelled services as such in their real-time data, however if a service is in fact operating, but running very late (eg. >30 mins) due to traffic conditions, then the real-time systems can struggle to track accurately and often fall back to showing timetabled times. I agree that this isn’t helpful for customers, but it’s always been a shortcoming of such a complicated technology.

Don't think traffic is related to the incident I encountered last Saturday. A broken down bus isn't going anywhere, regardless of traffic.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Sadly this is another illustration of what I've previously called the sad decline of a once reliable company.

Same issue as with Go North East, with the same root cause.

 

[LucyP]

The X98/99 service is now as unreliable as it was under Transdev. This afternoon there were delays of at least 25 minutes to every service. After 3pm, 3 buses were on their way to Leeds and only one very late running X98, the 14:35 from Leeds was heading towards Wetherby. It was over 30 minutes late at Collingham. People waiting on the opposite side of the road for the 15:55 return journey, would have had at least another 45 minutes to wait, as the bus had to go to Wetherby, then onto Deighton Bar and then back to Wetherby, before returning to Collingham and Leeds.

 

[Fox192]

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[Ballyheigue]

The X98/99 service is now as unreliable as it was under Transdev. This afternoon there were delays of at least 25 minutes to every service. After 3pm, 3 buses were on their way to Leeds and only one very late running X98, the 14:35 from Leeds was heading towards Wetherby. It was over 30 minutes late at Collingham. People waiting on the opposite side of the road for the 15:55 return journey, would have had at least another 45 minutes to wait, as the bus had to go to Wetherby, then onto Deighton Bar and then back to Wetherby, before returning to Collingham and Leeds.

Oh well, that's life, you'll get used to it. Leeds on any day of the week isn't exactly known for it's free flowing traffic so I'm not surprised they ran late. Many a service in Leeds runs late or is cancelled due to excessive traffic, just one crash on the Outer Ring Road down in Beeston the other day caused chaos for example. There are often tail backs from the Asda House area through to Mill Hill, the Merrion Centre and Albion Street area is another one for traffic problems. I've always said the route needs shortening to the Bus Station, it might not solve all traffic problems but it'll cut out a lot of the city centre hold ups.

 

[YorkRailFan]

The X98/99 service is now as unreliable as it was under Transdev. This afternoon there were delays of at least 25 minutes to every service. After 3pm, 3 buses were on their way to Leeds and only one very late running X98, the 14:35 from Leeds was heading towards Wetherby. It was over 30 minutes late at Collingham. People waiting on the opposite side of the road for the 15:55 return journey, would have had at least another 45 minutes to wait, as the bus had to go to Wetherby, then onto Deighton Bar and then back to Wetherby, before returning to Collingham and Leeds.

I've said before that a change in operator without significant timetable changes and traffic measures from West Yorkshire Combined Authority was never going to improve reliability. Things like this are out of control for the operator, whoever that might be.

 

[Swimbar]

The X98/99 service is now as unreliable as it was under Transdev. This afternoon there were delays of at least 25 minutes to every service. After 3pm, 3 buses were on their way to Leeds and only one very late running X98, the 14:35 from Leeds was heading towards Wetherby. It was over 30 minutes late at Collingham. People waiting on the opposite side of the road for the 15:55 return journey, would have had at least another 45 minutes to wait, as the bus had to go to Wetherby, then onto Deighton Bar and then back to Wetherby, before returning to Collingham and Leeds.

Welcome to the real world! People living in remote villages do not understand the complexities of running a bus service into a city.

 

[Fox192]

Morse Coaches joins Go-Ahead Group

Go-Ahead has strengthened its position as one of the UK’s leading coach operators with the acquisition of Morse Coaches

www.eastyorkshirebuses.co.uk

Ey/Go Ahead have taken on Morse Coaches

 

[YorkRailFan]

Morse has lots of lucrative school contracts with North Yorkshire Council, they operate services for numerous schools across the county. Similar to First purchasing York Pullman.

I do wonder if EY will move some of the North Riding services to Morse, as their depot is in Sheriff Hutton, as they did with the 182 going to Procters. Morse's depot lies along the 81 route (which interworks with the 194) and isn't too far off the 31X (which interworks with the 80) route. The main problem I see with this is Morse currently only operates schools & private services, not public services so EY would need to apply for the license. Depot space might be a problem too.

 

[Bristol LHS]

Feels like a bit of a consolation prize for EYMS’ faltering strategy around York. First have shown more resilience in the city than elsewhere, and Transdev managed to hold the City Council tenders and snagged Reliance, both of which EYMS must have had their eye on. EYMS‘ delivery on North Riding hasn’t been great.

I guess Morse makes sense for the 81, but Sheriff Hutton isn’t much better a base for the York Locals or the 31x than Pocklington. Maybe it is a pure coaching/school travel play.

I suspect West Yorkshire tendering is taking up bandwidth at EYMS, though the results of that might also be significant for the future of Arriva‘s outpost at Selby, or leave First York looking exposed/isolated if First were to lose out badly - both of which might provide opportunities for EYMS in and around York.

 

[175mph]

Feels like a bit of a consolation prize for EYMS’ faltering strategy around York. First have shown more resilience in the city than elsewhere, and Transdev managed to hold the City Council tenders and snagged Reliance, both of which EYMS must have had their eye on. EYMS‘ delivery on North Riding hasn’t been great.

I guess Morse makes sense for the 81, but Sheriff Hutton isn’t much better a base for the York Locals or the 31x than Pocklington. Maybe it is a pure coaching/school travel play.

I suspect West Yorkshire tendering is taking up bandwidth at EYMS, though the results of that might also be significant for the future of Arriva‘s outpost at Selby, or leave First York looking exposed/isolated if First were to lose out badly - both of which might provide opportunities for EYMS in and around York.

Imagine East Yorkshire buying First's York operations and/or Arriva's Selby outpost.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Well over the last few days, reliability has been far from great.
On Saturday, 20276 failed in Ripon, leaving 3 York-Ripon diagrams cancelled (including the first bus of the day from Ripon to York and Hessay's only bus service to York) until 20396 could be scrambled from Pocklington.
On Sunday, two of the 'Eastrider' ADL400MMCs broke down on the X46/X47, leading to B9s being sent as a back-up.
On Tuesday, 20508 failed in Kirkbymoorside, resulting in 20278 being sent from Scarborough as a recovery, arriving into York 1 hour 25 minutes late so 20920 was sent from Pocklington to cover a diagram on the 80.
All with no information from EY.

Imagine East Yorkshire buying First's York operations and/or Arriva's Selby outpost.

With a franchising pilot coming In North Yorkshire soon, I doubt that. First York is a bit of a crown jewel for First North & West Yorkshire, its usually the best performing out of the region. Depending on how they do at franchising in West Yorkshire, Arriva may cling onto Selby until franchising in North Yorkshire.

Feels like a bit of a consolation prize for EYMS’ faltering strategy around York. First have shown more resilience in the city than elsewhere, and Transdev managed to hold the City Council tenders and snagged Reliance, both of which EYMS must have had their eye on. EYMS‘ delivery on North Riding hasn’t been great.

I guess Morse makes sense for the 81, but Sheriff Hutton isn’t much better a base for the York Locals or the 31x than Pocklington. Maybe it is a pure coaching/school travel play.

I think it's similar to First's acquisition of York Pullman, the lucrative school contracts with the desire to take on some additional public work (like Pullman has with the 16 in York) and possibly a preparation for the franchising pilot in North Yorkshire. Sheriff Hutton is good for the 13 though, so I wonder if EY might have their eye on that as it would tie in nicely with their 12 & 14 in York.

I don't think many predicted Transdev's resurgence in York, leading to a new depot and acquisition of routes. EY drivers tell me the 31X sticks out like a sour thumb and I think it would be for the benefit of users if Transdev took on the service as they publish the joint timetable and service updates. First turning James Street electric has given them a lock on Park & Ride contracts as no one else has the infrastructure to operate electric services in York. I think EY's mistake was expecting Transdev to react like Arriva did, and just scale down operations to solely the Coastliner (as Arriva did with the 42 & 415) but Transdev was not willing to go down without a fight.

 

[stevieinselby]

All with no information from EY.

Go-Ahead do seem to be very, well, go-ahead when it comes to planning and the theoretical service – the timetables and much of the fleet are a lot better than we typically see from the big companies – but it's in the delivery where it's going wrong, and the lack of any way to contact the company in real time is definitely a big problem.

With a franchising pilot coming In North Yorkshire soon, I doubt that. First York is a bit of a crown jewel for First North & West Yorkshire, its usually the best performing out of the region. Depending on how they do at franchising in West Yorkshire, Arriva may cling onto Selby until franchising in North Yorkshire.

With the amount of money that First have spent upgrading the fleet in York, I can't imagine they will be voluntarily giving that up any time soon!
Agreed that Arriva Selby feels a bit in limbo awaiting the outcome of franchising decisions. What I'm not sure about is if there are any cross-border services that Arriva currently run from depots within West Yorkshire, which they might be looking to re-home after the launch of Weaver – if so then that could give Selby a bit of a fillip.

I don't think many predicted Transdev's resurgence in York, leading to a new depot and acquisition of routes. EY drivers tell me the 31X sticks out like a sour thumb and I think it would be for the benefit of users if Transdev took on the service as they publish the joint timetable and service updates. First turning James Street electric has given them a lock on Park & Ride contracts as no one else has the infrastructure to operate electric services in York. I think EY's mistake was expecting Transdev to react like Arriva did, and just scale down operations to solely the Coastliner (as Arriva did with the 42 & 415) but Transdev was not willing to go down without a fight.

If EY don't want the 31X then no-one forced them to bid for it!
I think a key difference is that when Arriva lost the contract for the 24/25/26, they didn't have anything else in the city to fall back on, and with their depot being in Selby that leads to a lot of dead mileage – the same problem that EY have when bringing buses in from Pocklington or further afield – whereas Transdev had a base in York, and had various unrelated contracts for local services (ie, 19, 20 and 24/25 are three separate contracts) so even if they lost one then it wouldn't be the end of their York services altogether. TBH, the surprising thing was more that Arriva successfully bid for the 24/25/26 in the first place, than that they lost it!

I'm sure EY would like to run more services in and around York, but if they're going to be doing so from Pocklington then it doesn't bode well for reliability!

 

[YorkRailFan]

Go-Ahead do seem to be very, well, go-ahead when it comes to planning and the theoretical service – the timetables and much of the fleet are a lot better than we typically see from the big companies – but it's in the delivery where it's going wrong, and the lack of any way to contact the company in real time is definitely a big problem.

My MP contacted me in response to an email saying that they have contacted the Head of Public Affairs at Go-Ahead regarding this.

With the amount of money that First have spent upgrading the fleet in York, I can't imagine they will be voluntarily giving that up any time soon!

Agree!

If EY don't want the 31X then no-one forced them to bid for it!
I think a key difference is that when Arriva lost the contract for the 24/25/26, they didn't have anything else in the city to fall back on, and with their depot being in Selby that leads to a lot of dead mileage – the same problem that EY have when bringing buses in from Pocklington or further afield – whereas Transdev had a base in York, and had various unrelated contracts for local services (ie, 19, 20 and 24/25 are three separate contracts) so even if they lost one then it wouldn't be the end of their York services altogether. TBH, the surprising thing was more that Arriva successfully bid for the 24/25/26 in the first place, than that they lost it!

I'm sure EY would like to run more services in and around York, but if they're going to be doing so from Pocklington then it doesn't bode well for reliability!

I wonder if EY did a package bid for the North Yorkshire services last year. The 22/23, Castleline & 194 were all up for renewal and the 29 along with some 31X journeys were put up for tender for the first time. Meaning that EY just ended up with the 31X as part of a larger deal with the Council to run those other services.

Arriva seems happy with their York presence, providing a frequent service down Fulford Road which competes with First. EY has added lots of journeys down corridors in York, which do compete with First, like additional 84 journeys up Poppleton Road and the regular increases to Hull Road services.

If EY wants to expand in York, at the very least they'll need an outstation closer to York than Pocklington. Pocklington just isn't suitable for more services to run with lots of dead mileage. Pocklington is more suited to the 'Eastrider' services into York, 747, 18, various school services, 46 & the Pocklington area services which run once or twice a week (195, 196, 197, 199, 544, 594).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

Well over the last few days, reliability has been far from great.
On Saturday, 20276 failed in Ripon, leaving 3 York-Ripon diagrams cancelled (including the first bus of the day from Ripon to York and Hessay's only bus service to York) until 20396 could be scrambled from Pocklington.
On Sunday, two of the 'Eastrider' ADL400MMCs broke down on the X46/X47, leading to B9s being sent as a back-up.
On Tuesday, 20508 failed in Kirkbymoorside, resulting in 20278 being sent from Scarborough as a recovery, arriving into York 1 hour 25 minutes late so 20920 was sent from Pocklington to cover a diagram on the 80.
All with no information from EY.

Additionally, on Monday 20290 failed on the approach to Castle Howard resulting in 20283 being sent as a replacement from Scarborough. 20290 has not tracked since.

 

[9143180]

My MP contacted me in response to an email saying that they have contacted the Head of Public Affairs at Go-Ahead regarding this.

Agree!

I wonder if EY did a package bid for the North Yorkshire services last year. The 22/23, Castleline & 194 were all up for renewal and the 29 along with some 31X journeys were put up for tender for the first time. Meaning that EY just ended up with the 31X as part of a larger deal with the Council to run those other services.

Arriva seems happy with their York presence, providing a frequent service down Fulford Road which competes with First. EY has added lots of journeys down corridors in York, which do compete with First, like additional 84 journeys up Poppleton Road and the regular increases to Hull Road services.

If EY wants to expand in York, at the very least they'll need an outstation closer to York than Pocklington. Pocklington just isn't suitable for more services to run with lots of dead mileage. Pocklington is more suited to the 'Eastrider' services into York, 747, 18, various school services, 46 & the Pocklington area services which run once or twice a week (195, 196, 197, 199, 544, 594).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==


Additionally, on Monday 20290 failed on the approach to Castle Howard resulting in 20283 being sent as a replacement from Scarborough. 20290 has not tracked since.

How come so many 200MMCs are breaking down?

 

[YorkRailFan]

How come so many 200MMCs are breaking down?

Probably due to all the dead mileage they have Monday-Saturday.

I have received a reply from my MP, with an email from Ben Gilligan MD at EY. One part I want to highlight is:

I do acknowledge the issues raised around communication and contacts and we are due to reinstate our customer telephone line in the new year having previously moved to a self service model a number of years ago.

Hopefully the telephone line is reinstated in early 2026, not late 2026.

Regarding cancellations on EY's app, Ben Gilligan said:

Clearly our aim is to run 100% of all our services however where there are failures we should be cancelling them on our system which will feed them through to the passenger app.

 

[JeffBus]

My word, have read some stuff in my time. Buses do not break down due to dead mileage.

 

[stevieinselby]

I wonder if EY did a package bid for the North Yorkshire services last year. The 22/23, Castleline & 194 were all up for renewal and the 29 along with some 31X journeys were put up for tender for the first time. Meaning that EY just ended up with the 31X as part of a larger deal with the Council to run those other services.

I don't know quite how the contracting works, but I would be surprised if it was let as a single package given that it includes completely unconnected route groups, I would have thought NYC would have wanted to have as much flexibility as possible by keeping them as three separate lots.

If EY wants to expand in York, at the very least they'll need an outstation closer to York than Pocklington. Pocklington just isn't suitable for more services to run with lots of dead mileage. Pocklington is more suited to the 'Eastrider' services into York, 747, 18, various school services, 46 & the Pocklington area services which run once or twice a week (195, 196, 197, 199, 544, 594).

What would be interesting to see is if EY did move a load of those routes out of Pocklington, whether they would bring some of the EastRider E400MMC diagrams back to Pocklington, and potentially drop some of the very early morning journeys out of Hull. I would be happy if they did bring some of the new deckers back to Pock, if that meant they could be used on the summer Dalesbus services.

 

[JeffBus]

Probably due to all the dead mileage they have Monday-Saturday.

I have received a reply from my MP, with an email from Ben Gilligan MD at EY. One part I want to highlight is:

Hopefully the telephone line is reinstated in early 2026, not late 2026.

Regarding cancellations on EY's app, Ben Gilligan said:

I hear a lot about cancellations and reliability issues on a number of routes not run by EY/GA buses across the York/NY region. Did you raise these with the MP as well?

 

[YorkRailFan]

I hear a lot about cancellations and reliability issues on a number of routes not run by EY/GA buses across the York/NY region. Did you raise these with the MP as well?

A difference between cancellations from other operators (say First & Transdev in York) is that they are far better than EY at communicating issues and notifying passengers about cancellations. I was primarily raising the lack of communication from EY with my MP, something I find other operators better at. I've also seen that people in York have raised reliability concerns regarding Coastliner with their MP.

I don't know quite how the contracting works, but I would be surprised if it was let as a single package given that it includes completely unconnected route groups, I would have thought NYC would have wanted to have as much flexibility as possible by keeping them as three separate lots.

Wouldn't surprise me, Reliance often interworked the 29 with the 31X.

My word, have read some stuff in my time. Buses do not break down due to dead mileage.

Perhaps not the main factor, but almost certainly a contributing factor.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Dec 2025 ==

I would be happy if they did bring some of the new deckers back to Pock, if that meant they could be used on the summer Dalesbus services.

EY did use one of the 400MMCs on the 822 last summer as one was allocated to Pocklington for a couple weeks.

 

[Hyebone]

My word, have read some stuff in my time. Buses do not break down due to dead mileage.

My thoughts exactly

 

[Ballyheigue]

My thoughts exactly

Depends on how much dead mileage and how fast the bus goes during the period of dead mileage, if it's significant enough to cause quicker wear and tear then it's a possibility, for example sprinting up and down a fast running dual carriageway for 15 miles each way twice a day every day at the start and end of a route added to the normal miles the bus would do in service.

 

[KHCT]

Quite fun to see the press release for the Morse purchase describe Go-Ahead as "one of the UK's leading coach operators" given that GA have gutted EY's coaching division, completely ending day trips and holidays. I also note My Gilligan (the boss at EY) said "delivering safe, reliable and punctual services aligns perfectly with our values"; I wonder if he said that without laughing?

Probably due to all the dead mileage they have Monday-Saturday.

I'll still go with poor maintainence; see the issues at Go North East.

What would be interesting to see is if EY did move a load of those routes out of Pocklington, whether they would bring some of the EastRider E400MMC diagrams back to Pocklington, and potentially drop some of the very early morning journeys out of Hull. I would be happy if they did bring some of the new deckers back to Pock, if that meant they could be used on the summer Dalesbus services.

Be careful what you wish for; this year's Moorbus experience with these vehicles make it highly likely you'll spend your day out in a layby.

 

[EYFanatic]

What would be interesting to see is if EY did move a load of those routes out of Pocklington, whether they would bring some of the EastRider E400MMC diagrams back to Pocklington, and potentially drop some of the very early morning journeys out of Hull.

I'd be unhappy if the early buses out of Hull were cancelled as I use them quite a bit especially if there are known engineering works that cause much longer running replacement running services or strike action, derailments, elephant on the line etc... They still let me get my trains north to Scotland in good time

#

Does anybody know what the loading figures are for the X3? Is it well used?

Edited to ask: what is going on with some buses showing DEAD as a destination lately? It doesn't seem to be any particular place as tracking data on bustimes shows trips round Leeming Bar, Withernsea, the dining room of a care home in Hornsea (I assume slightly bad position data) and various places around the M1

 

[JeffBus]

Quite fun to see the press release for the Morse purchase describe Go-Ahead as "one of the UK's leading coach operators" given that GA have gutted EY's coaching division, completely ending day trips and holidays. I also note My Gilligan (the boss at EY) said "delivering safe, reliable and punctual services aligns perfectly with our values"; I wonder if he said that without laughing?


I'll still go with poor maintainence; see the issues at Go North East.

Be careful what you wish for; this year's Moorbus experience with these vehicles make it highly likely you'll spend your day out in a layby.

Given Go-Ahead’s recent acquisitions of the Procters Companies last year and Morse now, it’s worth stressing that non of those companies ran their own holidays or traditional day-trip programmes. They’ve always been about private hire, school contracts and corporate work. If the Procters group did it tended to be under contract to operators like Caledonian or similar, not as a standalone retail programme of their own.

So the idea that Go-Ahead is somehow “gutting” a coaching holiday empire doesn’t really line up with what these businesses actually did.

Which brings me to the suggestion about your EY boss. I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply, unless you’re imagining him in a high-backed chair, stroking a cat and laughing maniacally as he reduces the people of Hull’s ability to book a holiday by a devastating 0.001%. In reality he’s probably drowning in due-diligence documents, regulatory hoops and the usual joys of being a company director.

And let’s be honest: EY offering holidays in the past doesn’t automatically mean they were profitable. Proper touring relies on scale and buying power, precisely why brands like Caledonian and Shearings can make it work, and why smaller operators often step back from it.

So yes, things have changed, but portraying your boss as some Bond villain masterminding the downfall of day trips might be just a tiny bit of an exaggeration.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Dec 2025 ==

Depends on how much dead mileage and how fast the bus goes during the period of dead mileage, if it's significant enough to cause quicker wear and tear then it's a possibility, for example sprinting up and down a fast running dual carriageway for 15 miles each way twice a day every day at the start and end of a route added to the normal miles the bus would do in service.

Dead mileage doesn’t cause extra breakdowns. A mile of dead running is mechanically identical to a mile in service, the engine, gearbox and running gear operate the same way regardless of whether passengers are on board.

These buses then spend the rest of the day on rural and interurban work, which is one of the gentlest duty patterns a bus can have. Long stretches at steady speeds with few stops put far less strain on the vehicle than urban stop start driving. Adding a positioning run before or after the shift does not meaningfully increase wear.

Operators across the UK with predominantly rural or interurban routes regularly run miles of dead mileage a day without any rise in failures. If dead running genuinely caused breakdowns, those fleets would be experiencing far higher failure rates, but they aren’t. Real-world operation shows no link between dead mileage and increased mechanical issues.

Dead mileage affects scheduling and cost, not reliability,especially on rural and interurban duties.