Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

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RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(09/07/2014 21:41)FC Pictures Wrote:  To be fair of all the Speke routes the 79 was ok with single deckers before the route was extended to Halewood, they are full on most 79 lates because the number of routes serving Halewood has been reduced and it only runs every 20 minutes at night, during the day Commanders would be often good enough.

That isn't actually true, there was a large number of complaints from drivers and passenger alike about what vehicles were used on the 79. The main problem was peak hour and bank holidays where the service was every 15 minutes. Single Deckers would become full very quickly during the peak hour to the extent where no passengers could be picked up by 9/10 of the buses on route. There was numerous complaints from visitors to the Royal Liverpool Hospital that after visitng someone in care, they were sometimes unable to catch any bus at all for up to an hour due to how busy the services had become. Most services were unable to stop between Queen Square and Matalan Wavertree due to capacity reasons.
Drivers complained that they were loosing out on their brakes and there was a high amount of lost journeys due to the time full single deckers would take to get from A to B, this became an even bigger problem when it came to driver changeovers as the vans and cars would not be at the right place at the right time for the next drivers, and caused delays on other services.
During the festive periods, easter, and festivals such as Mathew Street, the buses became full very quickly and once again were unable to stop most of the route. During the Mathew street festival in 2010, buses were full between Netherley and Bellevale and became unable to call at any stop between the shopping centre and Brownlow Hill. Arriva were aware of this and started to run "79E" services between the shopping centre and liverpool one the following year.
Another problem was that the Renowns used on the route were well known for overheating in the summer, especially when they were working harder with large loads, the cadets were too slow climbing Brownlow Hill taking up to a whole minute to reach 20mph, and the ALX300 also had their fair share of overheating, although nothing like the renowns

The 79 was not converted to deckers due to the Halewood extention, it merely helped the cause and very few people use the service the full route, with most travelling to and from Belle Vale shopping Centre and Morrisons. 79 lates have always been busy in recent history, and was a lot worse when it was a 30 minute frequency, combined with a 30 minute 79c