Mike Rhodes on his Flickr page informed a couple of days ago that some ofthe Volvo B5 hybrids will be returning off lease later this year so yet more elderly stock will probably arrive to replace them sadly I would have thought.
Maybe Rotala could take a leaf out of Lothian's book and purchase some of the abundant early 2010s Volvo B9/Geminis that are on the market and thoroughly refurbish them Wrights or Thorntons.
Apparently they cost 40% of the price of a brand new one.Lothian's are done to a very high standard and for the unitiated appear to be new.
I would imagine that they might just loan a different batch of new deckers, The Streetdeck demo seems to suggest that they are looking for a batch of those, but when they get new they don't get much.
They will probably also buy ex London Stock but probably not Wright bodied Volvo's as they have high book values but Scania OmniCity deckers or Scania East Lancs OmniDekka's.
Preston Bus have posted this on their Facebook Page
**Service 280 Preston – Clitheroe – Skipton**
Preston Bus has de-registered its commercial operation of Service 280 from Monday 17th June 2019. The Preston - Clitheroe - Skipton service is likely to finish after its last timetabled journey on Saturday 15th June 2019.
Lancashire County Council have issued a tender, inviting bids from local bus operators to ascertain the potential cost to replace the withdrawn commercial service. However, at this moment in time there is no guarantee a contract will be awarded.
Any unused portions of Gold EasiWeek and Gold Easi28Day tickets will be refunded on a pro rata basis.
We'd like to thank the dedicated team of drivers on the 280 for their sterling efforts over the years. Reports from customers have been consistently outstanding.
A huge thank you too, to the regular customers who made the service a pleasure to operate.
The MD of Diamond NW said, in a news article which was linked onto the DBNW thread on this forum, that a new service which they had launched was being run on a use it or lose it basis. This is/was the same case here. After Transdev pulled out, Preston Bus decided to have a go. Sadly, like Transdev, Preston Bus can't afford to keep running the service.
I do sympathise with Preston Bus as I've no doubt folk will start going out along the route with petitions to try and save the service. All I can say is, if the petition along the route were to get 25'000 signatures, then why weren't those 25'000 people using the service?
Also worth noting that a large number of those critical of this decision, on their Facebook page, are from locations nowhere near the route.......
Shame to hear about the 280 service - been hoping to do the route for a long time and hope a tender can be awarded.
The Preston/Skipton tendered route was cancelled by LCC back in 2016 as part of the mass budget reductions, then taken on commercially by Preston Bus, was it not?
Also, have Stagecoach won the Preston Park & Ride contracts from PB??
(09/05/2019 22:45)SandyDrew Wrote: [ -> ]The Preston/Skipton tendered route was cancelled by LCC back in 2016 as part of the mass budget reductions, then taken on commercially by Preston Bus, was it not?
Also, have Stagecoach won the Preston Park & Ride contracts from PB??
Preston bus run it on a commercial basis so it's not contracted
With Prestonbus withdrawing 280 service will this mean they will have to now introduce a shuttlebus/staff taxi to take the Ribble Valley service drivers to/from Clitheroe for driver change overs only I'm sure that on some duties dont the drivers travel passenger on 280?
(09/05/2019 20:30)robertclark125 Wrote: [ -> ]The MD of Diamond NW said, in a news article which was linked onto the DBNW thread on this forum, that a new service which they had launched was being run on a use it or lose it basis. This is/was the same case here. After Transdev pulled out, Preston Bus decided to have a go. Sadly, like Transdev, Preston Bus can't afford to keep running the service.
I do sympathise with Preston Bus as I've no doubt folk will start going out along the route with petitions to try and save the service. All I can say is, if the petition along the route were to get 25'000 signatures, then why weren't those 25'000 people using the service?
Also worth noting that a large number of those critical of this decision, on their Facebook page, are from locations nowhere near the route.......
Transdev didn’t “pull out”.
LCC cancelled all their tendered local bus contracts in early 2016, and then tendered for a much reduced set of contracts, which included the Preston - Skipton route. Preston Bus surprisingly decided to run a commercial service on the route, so LCC did not need to award a contract for the route.
I’ve noticed that quite a few buses in the Preston fleet still have the old ticket machines fitted are the new ones still being brought in?