Orion VII 4 Life

With all the orders (artic, Prevost) they've won and the factory upstate I honestly thought Nova/Prevost was gonna become the next Orion for the MTA. Was shocked to see NF get the MTAB order but now it's really looking like Nova isn't gonna be so big with the TA. I'm good I like the Xcelsior more anyways, but it looked like the next 10 years was gonna be all LFS and Prevost coming our way. Then again, the TA took a lot of crap from Orion too and still ordered hundreds/thousands of buses from them.

Blame Orion for only offering the BAE Hybridrive

The guy gets on, the driver starts yelling but he dips his card anyways. Driver refused to move even after he paid, held up a pretty crowded bus and confused the shit out of everyone, then said he's getting the cops, picked up his radio and said "17whatever to base" and the guy called him a piece of shit and ran off. TBH that was kinda a dick move to hold up those pax when the point of closed door is faster service and he paid his fare. Then to call base about it, Veolia must be getting very strict about it for them to actually feel comfortable calling the company and say they're holding up a bus over that BS.

That's what happened on the N20, except the driver held up the bus and called the depot for the cops. LIB drivers were probably told to avoid confronting people in situations like that. That's standard MTA safety training, drivers aren't even supposed to hold up the buses over fare disputes, just remind the guy of the fare once and move on. NICE obviously doesn't have that kind of policy and seems to be fine with drivers holding up the bus even when someone gets on at a dropoff stop in Queens but pays their fare. I have a bad feeling there's gonna be more driver assaults if NICE keeps enforcing the closed door rule like they're doing now. When MTA drivers hold up a bus or keep yelling at someone who doesn't pay the fare it often ends up with the driver getting hurt, and remember NICE has no driver shields. Veolia needs to start thinking about their drivers' safety like the MTA does, again not saying the closed door policy isn't needed but they're going OD with the enforcement.

That's a little overkill especially during off peak hours when the next bus could be a half hour away. I understand they need to teach the Queens people a lesson but flagging people to do that is crazy. If no one is at their stop they wanna get off at, tough shit, obviously don't stop the bus to let him off when its closed door. If someone flags the bus and some dick wants to run off, what are you gonna do? Most people who know how to play the system right won't even tell the driver to stop, they'll wait for it to get flagged down and run out the front. Unless they're legit idiots that don't know the policy, those guys will hit the button and all that, like I said though the people who know the game are people going to the major stops the bus will stop at anyways and they'll run out without saying a word.

The Clever Devices on the 3rd Gens are being moved to next to the farebox and they have a new interface on the screen. Guess that's how they'll put them in on the other buses too.

1254 has hard seats like the 5xxx LFSAs. Kinda weird seeing them on a 1200

Rego and Forest Hills may not be as affluent as those other areas but if they're coming from down here chances are they have a pretty good job in finance. They got good money there just like they do in Bayside and Fresh Meadows. QM11s (and QM25s as well going to Middle Village) can be just as packed as a QM7 or 8.

Last ride I had plenty of looks from the 1PP crowd. Definitely agree about the 7/8, didn't get looks on the bus got got plenty from the 7/8 crowd waiting in line!

Yeah. Last ride you should've seen the looks from the people. Someone who obviously worked at 1 Police Plaza (was talking about cop stuff) stared at me the whole ride. But according to our friend VG8 here it's just part of the "express bus culture".

No looks from anyone on tonight's QM11 ride... finally. Maybe the express bus elite crowd leaves early, gotta remember to take it a little later like I did today next time I need it.

Won't do anything. People damn well know the policy and still take advantage. If NYCDOT is starting to have a problem with it they should have cops ride the buses through to the city line and stop giving Veolia sh*t for something that's very hard to control. Question is-what actual law (not NICE/NYCDOT policy) is a fare paying customer breaking by getting on and off in Queens? And if Veolia tells the drivers to strictly enforce the policy we could start seeing assaults like MTA drivers get when they try to enforce the fare, and that's something no one wants. Obviously the closed door policy is needed to speed up peoples' trips to/from Nassau County but strictly enforcing it is gonna be a problem. NICE doesn't even have driver shields.

I'm wondering if someone complained to get the DOT to take action, perhaps the ATU union that covers the NYCT drivers in Queens. Or maybe now that LIB isn't MTA anymore they're starting to give a damn. Ed Mangano would sure love if the DOT revoked their license so he could make even more cuts.

This guy gets it: Lots of people take advantage of NICE. Up until now I've never seen someone not get away with it, sure there's short arguments between the driver and pax trying to get off/on the wrong way in Queens but everyone ends up getting their way. Hell a lot of the drivers will pick people waiting in Queens when they drop off if it's a bad weather day. Most people getting off eastbound in Queens know their stop is a major stop the bus is gonna pick up at and will run out the front when it stops there, some will push the back door or just open it if the driver has the back door on before the county line. This is the first time I've ever seen a bus get held up over something like this. I think honestly the driver should have let him on, he paid and was holding up the bus for a good 2-3 minutes and this driver was actually gonna wait for the cops to come on and drag him off (this wasn't trying to intimidate the guy, he was serious). My guess is Veolia was told by NYCDOT to do more about it and the drivers were told to have zero tolerance for it. Remember the city DOT can revoke their right to run in city limits.

They ain't messing around with the closed door policy in Queens anymore. Someone tried to get on a N20 to Flushing in Bayside and the driver wouldn't move even after he swiped his Metro. Picked up the radio and asked the depot to call the cops, then he finally got off (this was right by the 111 Precinct). This driver definitely wasn't messing around, he held the bus for 2 lights at least while this guy gave him sh*t like "I swiped my card move the damn bus". Other people didn't know what was going on and started offering to pay his fare. I'm guessing NYCDOT or some other city agency is starting to catch on that people regularly try to beat the closed door policy and they want NICE to have it stop. I see it all the time and usually they get let on and the bus never gets held up more than the 5 seconds it takes to argue with the driver before he usually moves. Getting off in Queens from Flushing/Jamaica, I don't know how they'll stop that one. People getting off at a major stop run out when the door opens or push the back door open.

It's parked on 85th by the depot and just showing on the map. They do that sometimes.

They handle the crowds better than the LFS.

Bring em back to Ulmer and QV is what I say...let the island get the Nova crap

They're not at SC, the local buses there are the C40LFs.

The only thing I hate is that they're all in f*cking Castleton.

Theres an S96 in front of my S61 right now. I swear if a S91 runs and passes us... An S98 just passed too.

They're overusing those 142As too. Most of the 62As that go out for the rush go OOS at Pelham Bay or Parkchester after the rush while the 142As stay out. They might as well get used to running a good number of them at night and the weekend... The works the same way. The 188s go OOS, the 62As stay out.

So at Transdev's contract NJT operation the "operator" on the side has been taped over with "TRANSDEV SERVICES INC." replacing Veolia. Did they do that at NICE too? Haven't been to Jamaica or Flushing in a few weeks so I wouldn't know.

Considering the MTA's system was a rather cheap in-house setup it's not likely, but who knows. That system obviously came from a vendor that has a complete "smart bus" system with automatic passenger counters and automatic announcements that work together with each other. MTA will be getting counters from Clever Devices along with announcements starting next year, I don't know if they could hook that up with the Bustime system since it's probably their proprietary system but maybe they will be able to. (possibly through a licensing fee?)

I never saw that run the M15