I'm sure it was Luke Marion who said about taking the Arriva site but clearly some fairly pivotal issue means plan B. Not a big site so whilst the parking area nearby is useful, going to be fun for refuelling and maintenance..
If you want to go back further... The Arriva's Aylesbury depot isn't the United Counties one, being opened to replace Buckingham Street in 1991 which in itself was actually part of Eastern National from 1939 until 1952.
There were two large displays of leaflets at either end of the bus station last week.
Not open toppers I assume
Depends what you mean by "get"?
Arriva also put in a revised registration, deregistering the Midlands one (for Aylesbury depot) with a new Southern Counties one (reflecting operation by Hemel depot) IIRC
There is no registration for this as yet, meaning it would be some weeks before this could begin if this were indeed true.
Dare I ask where Redline would be getting the money from for this competition? Redline tend to compete heavily (such as early-late on the same frequency) and that's not cheap. Surely their other routes and contracts are not bringing in enough profit to cover losses on competing routes until you end up running the main operator off the road. My observations in Aylesbury were that when Redline and Arriva were side by side on the same routes, people were still opting and Redline got jus ta token few passengers. Generally older concessionary pass holders.
How do you “get” a route?
Surely very unlikely. They have already bitten off plenty with the Oxford and Wycombe routes, yes they could do with some deckers for some journeys on these but why compete on the X5? And I'm sure Arriva wouldn't be dropping it at such short notice.
What makes you so sure that bustimes is correct?
Basically Arriva data comes from Arrivas Ticketer data meaning someone within Arriva couldn't be bothered to update the Ticketer data (which also means they are providing wrong Bus Open Data to the government!).
Whilst they are showing on the timetables panel, the key thing would be to note that no vehicles have tracked on the X7 today, whilst the X20 tracks every 15 minutes.
I travelled on the 800 and 38 yesterday - Carousel were doing a pretty good job of it (struggling in Reading traffic a little, but there is enough padding in the schedules to catch up to the timetabled arrivals in Henley and HW after the county boundary). Reasonably busy too
Traffic in Reading is standard, although the 800 should go up Reading Bridge and that's normally one of the quieter routes out of town
No, this would reduce a lot of the passenger volume as a lot of people go shopping in central Cav (especially as a lot of the shops in central Reading close and get replaced by housing). Not just that, people travel to the library, churches and dentist (of which there is quite limited parking for all 3).
Yes, it would destroy a lot of the route's viability.
Surely the main volume is from central Reading to Henley.
!