Arriva North West - Green Lane Depot

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Arriva North West - Green Lane Depot
From the previous posts and my observations at GL over the last 18 months/2 years there's been quite a lot of rubbish dumped at GL over this period particularly totally inappropriate Dart slf's with some of the oldest in the Arriva fleet usually showing up at GL and most of which are pretty much life expired and totally inappropriate for many of GL's high passenger routes.

Yes many of GL's routes are high frequency but the weight of numbers I've seen/experienced when using GL routes seems to suggest there should be deckers for the 12/13 and there's a strong case for them on the 10B, 15, 18 etc. and I won't go to heavy into this now.

If Arriva NW (wrongly) think single decks are the way (for now) for GL then there should've been a big order of Comanders/Pulsars or 12m singles from about 2005 to replace the Endurances, Ultralow's, Dart's etc. which hasn't really happened. Yeah there's been piecemeal reinvestment at GL but routes which should have kept these vehicles like the 15 and 18's have seen old vehicles frequently allocated to them and to the point the PVR's don't have the majority of the 'new' vehicles these routes should have on them.

Additonally Arriva NW could surely put in better vehicles than cast off Darts from depots which have got new Pulsars/deckers as replacements and particularly the pretty much life expired Dart's and Daf Cadets and Ikarus's should really be sold on or scrapped and are insulting to people using GL's routes which are a major profit generator for Arriva NW. Even the much criticised ex-London DLA's would've been better and more suitable at GL than most of this rubbish.

The only half decent cast off kit which has arrived at GL were the Renown's and even one of them (electrical not vandalism) caught fire which has mean't one less 12m single deck which is really what GL needs and I still don't know why if GL can't have deckers why the ex-London bendies couldn't have been acquired instead (thanks Merseytravel!) which although not as good as deckers would have solved some of the overcrowding problems these routes suffer instead of allowing them to rot at an airfield right now.

If Arriva management do take notice of this site perhaps they may conceed that if they gave GL a fair go it really needs to be set up with the following-

6 - Generally fine with midi's/12m single decks
7/7A - 12m single decks or midi's on a 20 min daytime frequency
8/9 - 12m single decks or midi's on a 20/15 min (each) daytime frequency
10B - 12m single decks or borderline double decks
12/13 - double decks
14 - 12m single decks (double deckers if one of the operators disappeared from the 14's)
15 - 12m single decks or borderline double decks
18 - 12m single decks or borderline double decks
26/27 - 12m single decks with double decks on matchdays
68 - could be midi operated on an increased 15min M-F daytime frequency (20 mins Saturdays).

Yes GL does serve some rough areas but on the whole these areas/passengers using these services are no worse than some of those in South Liverpool and to some extent the Wirral. Overall GL seems to be getting the worst vehicles and cast offs in Arriva NW with no real focus (branding, hybrids etc.) in developing what could be very good bus territory. Additionally there also seems to be a lack of support from Merseytravel for these route corridors despite all its bluster about SMART and QBP's and the lack of rail alternatives and no sign of a trams even coming to the city either.

Come on Arriva NW start treating GL bus users better than you are right now!