The following statement has been issued by First SY today.
To add some detail to the below: the 26 vehicles expected at Olive Grove are 36221-7/35-53 from Hunslet Park, of which 36221-4/27/37 have arrived to date.
Their arrival, plus that of E400s 33705/14/17/20/25/55 from First Manchester will allow the remaining B10BLEs and B7Ls to be finally put out of their misery. However, it is also allowing a number of StreetDecks to transfer to First Leicester (they were originally intended to get some of the 26 B9TLs but are now getting the StreetDecks instead) of which 35117/31 are the first to move.
Statement in full is as follows.
Ian
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Statement from Garry Birmingham, Managing Director of First Bus South Yorkshire:
As the managing director of First South Yorkshire, myself and the team absolutely recognise that punctual and reliable services are very important for our customers. Over the last several years we have worked hard with partners to improve reliability & punctuality including the introduction of new ticketing technology to speed up boarding and reduce journey time.
In recent weeks however, our service delivery performance has not been at the standards that we set ourselves or to the level that our customers expect, for which I am sorry.
There are a combination of factors that have caused this including congestion from seasonal traffic levels and the city centre road-works but one of the key issues affecting service delivery at the moment is vehicle availability. We have been experiencing major issues following the very wet weather which caused excessive amounts of electrical and water ingress faults. This was compounded by parts availability issues due to business changes at one of our main suppliers Wrightbus, which is now starting to ease following their takeover completion.
Although the issue of vehicle availability is improving, we are taking a number of specific additional actions to ensure we can achieve and sustain stable service delivery. This includes sourcing vehicle parts from alternative suppliers, bringing in additional technical expertise, using additional workshops to complete repairs and bringing extra vehicles into the fleet. In all we will receive 26 newer vehicles over the next few weeks, the first of which have now started to arrive. In addition our recruitment drive is continuing for engineering staff and other engineering options are being explored to ensure we are suitably equipped going forward.
I would like to apologise to all our customers for the impact this is having on their travel and assure them we are doing everything we can to recover our current vehicle availability issues and deliver the high standards of service we can be proud of.
