Yes bro. I think last year's BSEP deployment should be reviewed
again. 2, 87, 168 should be given Wrights. Take those Wrights from
either 119 or 50. A Citaro hardly helps the loading on any of these
services. More so, it is irritating when the Citaro comes first,
and a DD follows within 2-3 minutes.
I don't know if you agree but during peak times a Citaro can be
slower than a DD and can cause massive delays. At major bus stops,
when pax cannot enter as the bus is full, the BC has to first ask
pax to move to the rear, then ask pax to stand back. This makes the
Citaro further late, and the DD behind catches up but doesn't get
its full due of passengers. After the peak loading area is gone,
the DD behind becomes redundant with very few pax on
board.
I think I mention before, think the rationale to use a Citaro in
between the DDs of those svcs was to split the load. I.e. Introduce
a bus in between which beats having no bus at all. But I think they
might reverse the decision of deploying BSEP Citaros soon, might be
a wait-and-see approach.
But you're right in a way, having Citaros in any case on a
DD-dominated svc is just asking for trouble. KUBs not that bad
cause the standing area can crush-load with 2 & even 3 rows.
The Citaros during Peak, practically everyone just stands in one
row from front to rear. At most 20-25 standees only. If you compare
to a KUB, the amt of standees pales by a whole lot.
And the case you mentioned, are for BCs which obviously are just
doing their own jobs & minding their own business. I've seen
more than once BCs co-operating together with their own hand
gestures, whereby the BC driving the SD would specifically overtake
the DD and pick up the pax at the first few packed stops. The
considerably more-empty DD then zooms past the SD that stopped and
picks up the pax beyond the first few stops that the SD stops at.
This cycle continues again with every set of stops until they clear
the packed stretch of the route.
Also seen this pattern of co-op for services with Citaro & KUB
one after another as well (think in the context of the CGA svcs).
This pattern I've observed, usually occurs more so for the
long-time perm BCs of the svcs though.
