Go North West

[djb]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!

(14/03/2021 01:38)Solo40336 Wrote:  While its good to see QS expand onto some smaller routes. The branding thing is absolutely ridiculous. Three buses being branded for a Mon-Sat daytime route. Reducing the fleets flexibility even more. Each night and Sundays those buses could have been quite nicely used to cover Free Bus services as well as some of the quiet evening services when short of buses.
99% of the passengers using the 415/129 could not care less what colour it is as long as it shows up.
While I'm sure they no doubt have the best intentions, the numerous colour schemes just seem to be something for managment to play with unaware of just how much trouble numerous branded routes cause for the routing end engineering departments.

Whilst I understand your principle from a logistics point of view, really don’t see the problem. If the 415/129 passengers don’t care what shows up, I’m sure the rest of the GNW ridership won’t be too bothered either if a slightly different bus turns up from time to time if there’s a shortage. Especially if the branding is on the sides, where you won’t notice it until after you’ve flagged it down.

If trent barton can do it with the majority of their fleet, I’m sure GNW can do it with 3 solos. After all- who knows what franchising will demand of liveries.

[iMarkeh]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!
In GNWs defence, branding each route or route groups, has been proven to increase passenger numbers as passengers feel more of a connection to the bus. This is how Transdev has done things for years and they seem to see decent result on their network. GoNorthEast has done the same and seen similarly positive results.

It costs a lot and causes a lot of inflexibility and so companies wouldn't do it unless they thought they could get something back from it.

[Solo40336]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!
For the Middleton routes, the fact they are tendered so bring in the same revenue, branded or not makes it seem a waste, even if it was commercial at an hourly service, people will only use the route because they have to. Back when the 415 was a 15 minute service I used to use it rather than drive as it was just as easy. Now its hourly its next to useless except for the people who have no choice but to use the bus.

My mother has been a daily user of the 135 for years now and she's just any ordinary passenger with zero interest in buses. I think the route had been branded for about 3 months before she actually realised that it was a green bus specifically for the route and not just a generic green bus.

A uniformed fleet looks much smarter than a fleet with seven colour schemes that will inevitably appear on the wrong routes in in turn give more of an unprofessional look.

[Michael]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!

(14/03/2021 01:38)Solo40336 Wrote:  While its good to see QS expand onto some smaller routes. The branding thing is absolutely ridiculous. Three buses being branded for a Mon-Sat daytime route. Reducing the fleets flexibility even more. Each night and Sundays those buses could have been quite nicely used to cover Free Bus services as well as some of the quiet evening services when short of buses.
99% of the passengers using the 415/129 could not care less what colour it is as long as it shows up.
While I'm sure they no doubt have the best intentions, the numerous colour schemes just seem to be something for managment to play with unaware of just how much trouble numerous branded routes cause for the routing end engineering departments.

Correct stagecoach dropped route branding it was ridiculous you would be driving the X57 along wilmslow Road in a bus branded for the 38s or 76s

[Mayneway]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!

(14/03/2021 22:34)Michael Wrote:  Correct stagecoach dropped route branding it was ridiculous you would be driving the X57 along wilmslow Road in a bus branded for the 38s or 76s

They haven’t technically dropped route branding though as they still insist on using the magic bus brand which is laughable as how often do you see magic buses on corporate routes and vice Versa. What’s even worse is they now seem to have two corporate brands and two magic brands.

[Mrboo]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!
Route Branding works and you can keep the right buses on the right route but you have to stop staff breaking the golden rules. just like when people took wrong buses for routes like 415 you should not need to put a warning sticker in the cab.

Each route with Branding has to be parked up in right order at end of service. And each Branded route has togo out on right duty. and if a bus interworks it has to have a non branded bus or a bus that has hybrd branding. and a branded bus is never used as a spare no matter how temping it but really that bus should be out in service anyway. you should never have more then needed anyway so they should be out in service anyway so you should swap it with a non branded doing that route anyway. Buses on Tenders for TFGM should be in a pool and should be TFGM branded or owned by them. and the unbranded route free city buses should be used more.

[Mayneway]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!

(15/03/2021 20:12)Mrboo Wrote:  Route Branding works and you can keep the right buses on the right route but you have to stop staff breaking the golden rules. just like when people took wrong buses for routes like 415 you should not need to put a warning sticker in the cab.

Each route with Branding has to be parked up in right order at end of service. And each Branded route has togo out on right duty. and if a bus interworks it has to have a non branded bus or a bus that has hybrd branding. and a branded bus is never used as a spare no matter how temping it but really that bus should be out in service anyway. you should never have more then needed anyway so they should be out in service anyway so you should swap it with a non branded doing that route anyway. Buses on Tenders for TFGM should be in a pool and should be TFGM branded or owned by them. and the unbranded route free city buses should be used more.

Yet more nonsense.
TFGM started supplying their own buses on tendered routes but didn’t want to pay for maintenance so they ended up being virtually unusable, hence the large number of TFGM owned buses sat rotting in Stockport until recently rusting away.

As for the 415. It’s strictly an Enviro200 route, problem is not all the Enviro200’s will fit under the bridge on Grimshaw lane because they have pods on the roof so while all drivers know to only use an Enviro200, most wouldn’t know which have pods and which don’t ......hence the stickers.

[Solo40336]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!

(15/03/2021 20:12)Mrboo Wrote:  Route Branding works and you can keep the right buses on the right route but you have to stop staff breaking the golden rules. just like when people took wrong buses for routes like 415 you should not need to put a warning sticker in the cab.

Each route with Branding has to be parked up in right order at end of service. And each Branded route has togo out on right duty. and if a bus interworks it has to have a non branded bus or a bus that has hybrd branding. and a branded bus is never used as a spare no matter how temping it but really that bus should be out in service anyway. you should never have more then needed anyway so they should be out in service anyway so you should swap it with a non branded doing that route anyway. Buses on Tenders for TFGM should be in a pool and should be TFGM branded or owned by them. and the unbranded route free city buses should be used more.

As Mayneway has said above, there was never any "wrong buses" on the 415, its down to having different variants of Enviro200 that fit. GNW are probably the strictest operator for bus types the route has seen. When I used to use the route daily Firsts B7's did "accidentally" make it on the route, out of the 3 times I was on board 2 were swapped part way though the route for the Darts in use at the time and one (66872) made it full route no problem. Even during the closure of the low bridge a couple of months back Stagecoach used multiple deckers on there where as GNW stuck with the Enviro200s.

As for the branding your comment makes it sound oh so simple but its not. A branded bus should never be used on spares, ideally yes but on a daily basis there will be multiple branded buses in the workshops having Inspections and defect repairs, the vast majority can be done by early afternoon so you then have 2, 3, 4 branded buses that are automatically spare. Sure one or two can be slipped onto a school so doesn't really matter, but for the remaining repaired buses, branded or not they need to be sent out to make the afternoon PVR regardless of being on the correct route or not.

[Mayneway]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!

(16/03/2021 01:33)Solo40336 Wrote:  As Mayneway has said above, there was never any "wrong buses" on the 415, its down to having different variants of Enviro200 that fit. GNW are probably the strictest operator for bus types the route has seen. When I used to use the route daily Firsts B7's did "accidentally" make it on the route, out of the 3 times I was on board 2 were swapped part way though the route for the Darts in use at the time and one (66872) made it full route no problem. Even during the closure of the low bridge a couple of months back Stagecoach used multiple deckers on there where as GNW stuck with the Enviro200s.

As for the branding your comment makes it sound oh so simple but its not. A branded bus should never be used on spares, ideally yes but on a daily basis there will be multiple branded buses in the workshops having Inspections and defect repairs, the vast majority can be done by early afternoon so you then have 2, 3, 4 branded buses that are automatically spare. Sure one or two can be slipped onto a school so doesn't really matter, but for the remaining repaired buses, branded or not they need to be sent out to make the afternoon PVR regardless of being on the correct route or not.

GNW are very strict regarding low bridges they take it very seriously. Prime example is the 52, any single decker can be used, but they won’t allow a decker even on the short Eccles or Salford preceint turn backs so there’s no confusion.

As for branded buses, last time I had a branded bus on the wrong route, it had actually been on inspection and was taken out by a VSI and swapped due to a non exsistant heater.
I know from my time as a shunter/router it’s an fine art getting every bus out on the right route every morning.

[M60lad]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!
I thought the problem with deckers on 52 now was the fact the way the duties worked now was that at some point during the day a short would end up interworking with a long to Trafford Centre.

From what I've seen online recently though it seems that when Tyrers were doing 52 they were using Deckers regularly, not to sure whether these deckers were also used on the longs to Trafford Centre though and that's despite Tyrers being another operator being strict as to where a dobule decker can go.

Going back to 415s and showing my age back when I was younger GMBuses had no problem using various Leyland Nationals on the route with various size of pods on them, there was also a rumour once over that a Citaro made it onto 415 but I don't actually believe it myself, the only other type that I can remember being used on 415 was one of the Wright Renown B10BLEs.