Arriva North West - Birkenhead Depot

[Barney]

RE: Arriva North West - Birkenhead Depot

(17/01/2022 00:53)DVG526 Wrote:  Not begrudging anything, it’s good to see deckers on the 47. Just pointing out that when it suits the vehicles can be sourced. It’s not a big ask at LS, just two or three would probably be enough to back up the hybrids. Plenty of deckers at Bootle to spare a couple no need for a full allocation on the 60/61/63 etc, if anything they should be on town routes anyway.

The 47 service has been reduced to half hourly in recent times and the competing X2 Stagecoach service is now hourly thus reducing overall capacity by 50% hence the need for deckers.

According to reports elsewhere, Bootle is to receive more deckers from GL when the new StreetDecks are put into service there. The 60/61/63 serve several schools along their routes and need deckers during term time. Also, the 52/52A for which a batch of 15-plate Enviro400s were bought often have Pulsars allocated even though the frequency has been reduced since the start of the pandemic.

Clearly, the long-term solution is to for Arriva Merseyside to buy new deckers or source cascades from elsewhere as was the policy some years ago.