New Buses Orders

[Phil]

RE: New Buses Orders

(14/03/2013 16:24)Gillmoss 0324 Wrote:  ... Prior to the Arriva takeover of MTL you had at least 3-4 companies competing on the lucrative Liverpool routes and deckers started to be less of a requirement for routes like the 10A, 26/27, 79, 86 etc. Even then the corridors they operated on had some form of decker operation on peripheral routes like 8/9, 35, 38, 80 etc. Compounding this problem was the shift to low floor single decks. A Scania/Ultralow or B10BLE at best had 40 to 44 seats so MTL shifted to cheaper 37 seat Dart slf’s and the loss of 2 meters standing room resulted in cramped conditions for passengers on routes like the 79. MTL also bought Dart slf’s and Marshall’s in particular because they were cheap and generally saved them the cost of replacing Titan’s and Atlanteans with +£110k Volvo singles or more expensive double decks.

When Arriva bought MTL they foolishly expanded the midi bus buying policy to the extent the majority of the fleet had them, routes were cut and rationalised and whether or not a 12m single decker was more appropriate they bought them for those routes anyway. GTL still lingered around for a few years with ageing Titan’s on many of the profitable routes but even they went down the midi route and even worse when Stagecoach bought them yet more Dart slf’s appeared even though the MAN/ALX300 which was still available would IMHO been more suitable for a scaled down Gillmoss.

I suppose that when Arriva bought out MTL, we had arguably the worst possible MD in Bob Hind. This is a man who was quoted as saying "We'll use single deckers wherever possible" and that single deckers on the 79 corridor were "adequate."

It is easy to point the finger at MTL for the sudden, horrible influx of midi buses. 75 marshall darts was a huge number to be delivered and looking at some of the routes they were deployed on, you knew something was terribly wrong. They were in the s**t financially and couldn't really afford anything else, even the registration for 7676 (should have been 7666 - V666 DVU)

Then Arriva came in and immediately claimed to have 'rescued' MTL.

Cue mass route cuts and more horrible mass influxes of midi buses in cadets and darts to replace deckers. The Volvo B10s and B6s were only 'honoured' by Arriva as MTL had already ordered them apparantly.

I have always been of the opinion that high frequency single deck corridors only work for quick profits and not the passenger and this looks set to continue. Sadly