Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(09/07/2014 13:55)507009 Wrote:  Returning to St Helens, I doubt anti-social behaviour is a significant factor in their decision making. After all, they regularly use the VLW deckers on the 10/10A and previously had Bootle's 4415 on loan. This suggests they are/have been seriously considering an upgrade to deckers on the route and, as a regular user, I can confirm this definitely needs to happen. There are serious capacity problems on the route and this has been the case for years. Even back in the dark days of B10Bs, Flytes, Paladins and Ultralows plying the route, the overcrowding was serious.

I fully agree with your post mate.

Like you not really convinced ASBO is the main/only reason for no deckers on the 10/10A (experienced much worse in other city regions) and its most likely down to profitability and SH's profitability compared to that of LS or Speke. However it's not far fetched to say I've seen/used 10's packed to the rafters with standing loads and if any route on Merseyside has a case for deckers the 10/10A has it. It doesn't surprise me that this probably won't happen but if they're not going to upgrade to deckers for 10/10A SH will need more full size stuff like Commanders/Pulsars to stop stuff like Solo's creeping on there.

Maybe SH management could put a case with Arriva to switch 2002-07 midi sized vehicles like Cadets with Arriva the Shires full sized singles like Scania Solars which when I've seen them look very under utilised in that region and would be a much better option for Merseyside. Another option could be for Stagecoach to withdraw their 10C and introduce the 274/275 route that used to operate pre the Arriva takeover of MTL. From what I can remember this route did seem fairly well used and it would also reduce some of the overcrowding on both the Prescot Road and West Derby Road corridor/give Stagecoach a presence on West Derby Road too.

Suspending the bus lanes was a stupid idea and maybe this has resulted in Arriva/Stagecoach putting Liverpool/Merseyside to the back of the queue for re-investment. However SH does need approx 30 newer vehicles and an upgrade to deckers for 10/10A ideally achieves this.

(09/07/2014 14:27)MPTE1955 Wrote:  With regards to the decker issue on 10/A I'm not sure that a whole fleet is needed as buses are regular enough and there are plenty of them. Maybe at busier times a decker or two could be utilised but as a whole I'm just not sure. I do live along the route so i'm not going off half-cocked on this one. Ultimately, somebody else will have a different opinion and that is up to them, we don't all have to agree.

Very true mate. I'm not going to criticise anyone who sees this differently - the good thing about the forum! I do reckon the 'doughnutting' problem needs solving on there for sure but again the suspension of the bus lanes has made this a million times worse especially coming in/out of the city centre from London Road to Dale Street.