Congratulations are in order for Mayor B for storming to a third term in May’s elections, winning a massive 63% majority on a pathetic 32% turnout. However, more concerning to me was the amount of rejected ballots. 5, 863! Nearly 6, 000 people that struggle to scribble two lines on a piece of paper. It makes you wonder, but refusal to vote is just as a right as voting I guess. Interesting.
Now, a few quickies:
BBB faves the LDRS churned out an article today, and duly picked up by every outlet going, screaming that the “yellow rebrand cost more than £500k”. Of course, the curse of the tabloid headlines worked its magic implying that £500k was for the WHOLE network repaint, commenters suggesting that they took the bait.
TfGM responded to a FoI request (but their media department are still ignoring yours truly) revealing that “estimated £6,000 to £7,000” had been spent per bus on a fleet of 93 vehicles. 93, as you’ll likely be aware, is not even a depot full. There are around 1,000 buses in the Bee Network. It also revealed that a wrap on a singular tram cost £20,000!
Congratulations to industry stalwarts McKenna Brothers on securing the contract to continue providing AV announcements to Bee.
Mellor 3.0 have started delivering vehicles again after getting their production lines backup and running.
Only three of First’s order for 17 Strata Plus has been noted in the yard. They’ve not made it into service yet, I guess they’re still going through driver training. LX24 NNL, LX24 XKP, and one unid.
1,758 BYD ADL Enviro200EV & 400EVs were subject to a safety bulletin notice at the start of March due to a potential fire hazard in the HVAC systems identified following “an issue” – ominous!
The “precautionary measures” relate to the Hispacold HVAC system, and operators have been instructed to, er, turn them off when unattended to avoid unwanted potential thermal incidents. There are roughly 100 BYD ADL EVs in the fleet.
Possible combustion notices didn’t do anything but encourage Fleet Street to run down the expected “anti EV” route, with the Daily Mail somewhat ironically self-combusting and resorting to their signature hysterical reporting trying to tenuously include a rather vague and generic quote from a ReformUK candidate. Better explained by Route One.
The Mail also quoted FairFuelUK founder and Reform UK candidate for the London mayoral election Howard Cox as claiming that taxpayers will “have to fund these expensive buses being taken off the road.”
Route One
It is unclear what Mr Cox is referring to on both points. Neither Alexander Dennis nor DVSA’s recall advisory service says that affected buses should be removed from service, leading to a source close to the matter to observe that it has been twisted by the parts of the mainstream media to “fit their narrative.”
BNC sat on 21st March two days prior to T2 live. Chair Mayor B present from the start! Wow! But wasn’t actually chairing the meeting and quietly slipped out the back door around 70 minutes in.
- Plans to introduce a live chat function in the Bee Network app for passengers to report anti social behaviour/crimes to the Bee Rozzers.
- Oldham only had 26 EVs ready for live.
- My favourite Ms Purcell informed the committee that there were 0 agency staff involved in T2 at the time. Not what I’ve heard.
- Outline business case for Golbourne station has been submitted to DaFT – 93% of responses to a public consultation were in support.
- The committee were supportive of Transport for the North’s motion to issue statutory advice to the Secretary of State to cancel Avanti’s contract at the “earliest possible opportunity”.
- The 24-hour buses pilot on V1 and 36 to be taken forward. It was accompanied by a baffling amount of data, evaluation, and business waffle in a 15 page report. Just fucking chuck some late trips into the schedule. It shouldn’t be this hard to change the timetables and add a few lines onto the night rota – that was the idea of franchising, wasn’t it? Just let late drivers stick to lates/nights if they wish. Easy. They’re only doing 1 bus per hour, though so should be even easier.
- A total of ZEBRA £37.8m, CRSTS funding £25.3m and match funding £12.5m for depot electrification – no idea where though. Presumably all T3 big sites.
- Curiously, a “release of £0.994m from previously approved funding to facilitate the replacement of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) with a digital solution be noted”.
No meeting in April, and nothing looks to be scheduled for May that I can see.
Promise me you won’t combust waiting for my next utterances.
