Wednesday 26 January 2011

B7 shake up


Plymouth Citybus' Volvo B7s from London have been nearly solely used on the 26 since arrival, in competition with First on the 3. They have now also been moved onto operation on the 36 and 41A since the route was changed. The deckers did seem to have excessive capacity though, which the 26 often didn't need. This week there seems to have been a workings change, with Citaros that would normally be on the 43, appearing on the 26, along with Darts. The B7s are being used on the 43 as well as other routes on a trial basis. Amazingly as one of the photos shows, one was operating on the 46 today, normally used to step entrance Darts!! This does seem a pretty good decision. The 43 often struggles with overloading, with a lot of people packed into the Citaros! The deckers seem perfect for the route and I'm sure the users will be very pleased to keep them. Though the total capacity isn't actually vastly different (because of extra standing room on a Citaro) the B7s will provide a much more pleasant journey when the numbers do rise! Certainly a very good bit of planning from PCB if this continues. 

3 comments:

Jared said...

A responce from Plymouth Citybus to a customer enquiry on Facebook.

Hello, we've swapped the buses round as an experiment, plan is to be back to normal next week.
Tuesday at 16:27

Laurence Mayhew said...

Oh thanks Jared well spotted! Well done, thanks for that. Shame really, I'd much rather have a Citaro than a B7 on the 26 when I use it! The deckers are certainly better for the job on the 43.

Jared said...

We shall wait & see what result we get at the end of the week from the Citybus directors!