(03 Sep 2014, 4:11 pm)Jimmi For an express service you can but the 23/24 do carry more than the people than just the loads leaving Park Lane.

By any chance was 1301 late because its flaming awful, the revving just before it left Park Lane sounded terrible, I feel sorry for anyone who had to endure that on the 23 today, they are bad enough on the 64 so I'd hate to have that on a hard route like the 23.

(03 Sep 2014, 4:21 pm)Dan This is the point I'm getting at though.

From personal experience, services 23/24 very rarely pick up passengers from Stockton Road until after Ryhope. With Go North East almost having the monopoly here, these passengers prefer to use their services opposed to Arriva's. Under 16s prefer to use Go North East buses because they're often turned away on Arriva's buses - I've seen two posts about this on Facebook lately, but unlike me, they didn't argue or complain to the company about it.

This means that Arriva are heavily relying upon the loadings from Sunderland when travelling to Peterlee, and from Peterlee when travelling to Sunderland. At the moment, in my opinion (as someone who gets to see the loadings throughout the day regularly), these loadings aren't fantastic. When services 23/24 leave Tyne & Wear, things change a little, and this accounts for your sightings in Peterlee where buses have had higher loadings.

Arriva cannot expect to bring in new customers with this service as they have no onward connections in Sunderland and very few in Peterlee (unless they're migrating from the X7 as a result of cheaper adult single fares); as such, the only way we can predict how well this service is going to do is by looking at the current loadings out of Sunderland.

It all seems to boil down to this vicious circle that I keep on mentioning, and testing to see if they burn their fingers or they do well... Competition can benefit passengers (if services aren't continuously facing cuts, as on the case on the Tyne Valley), but by and large, it doesn't (and this has recently been discussed elsewhere on the forum). I could understand if this service was being introduced to combat high loadings between the two destinations, but this is not the case...

(03 Sep 2014, 4:21 pm)Dan This is the point I'm getting at though.

From personal experience, services 23/24 very rarely pick up passengers from Stockton Road until after Ryhope. With Go North East almost having the monopoly here, these passengers prefer to use their services opposed to Arriva's. Under 16s prefer to use Go North East buses because they're often turned away on Arriva's buses - I've seen two posts about this on Facebook lately, but unlike me, they didn't argue or complain to the company about it.

This means that Arriva are heavily relying upon the loadings from Sunderland when travelling to Peterlee, and from Peterlee when travelling to Sunderland. At the moment, in my opinion (as someone who gets to see the loadings throughout the day regularly), these loadings aren't fantastic. When services 23/24 leave Tyne & Wear, things change a little, and this accounts for your sightings in Peterlee where buses have had higher loadings.

Arriva cannot expect to bring in new customers with this service as they have no onward connections in Sunderland and very few in Peterlee (unless they're migrating from the X7 as a result of cheaper adult single fares); as such, the only way we can predict how well this service is going to do is by looking at the current loadings out of Sunderland.

It all seems to boil down to this vicious circle that I keep on mentioning, and testing to see if they burn their fingers or they do well... Competition can benefit passengers (if services aren't continuously facing cuts, as on the case on the Tyne Valley), but by and large, it doesn't (and this has recently been discussed elsewhere on the forum). I could understand if this service was being introduced to combat high loadings between the two destinations, but this is not the case...

(05 Sep 2014, 2:41 pm)cbma06 "Our commercial team have said that we will be operating the following pattern of services in East Durham from Sunday 26th October 2014:

- Service 21/21A, as now between Darlington/Middlesbrough and Wingate, then to Peterlee via Wellfield Road, the A19 and Pennine Drive. The 21 will then continue to Sunderland as X21 via Little Thorpe, the A19 and Ryhope
- Service 22, as now every 30 minutes between Durham and Shotton, then direct to Peterlee via Burnhope Way and on to Sunderland via Easington Village, Dalton Park, New Seaham and Ryhope
- Service 23, as now every 30 minutes between Sunderland and Hartlepool, but with alterations to the timetable to fit with the new X21, 22 and 24
- Service 24, as now every 30 minutes between Durham and Shotton, then to Peterlee via Pennine Drive and Oakerside, then on to Hartlepool via Blackhall"

Looks like service 22 will be going direct to Peterlee bus station from A19 roundabout, service 21/21A will be going via Pennine Drive replacing service 22 in this area.

(05 Sep 2014, 2:41 pm)cbma06 "Our commercial team have said that we will be operating the following pattern of services in East Durham from Sunday 26th October 2014:

- Service 21/21A, as now between Darlington/Middlesbrough and Wingate, then to Peterlee via Wellfield Road, the A19 and Pennine Drive. The 21 will then continue to Sunderland as X21 via Little Thorpe, the A19 and Ryhope
- Service 22, as now every 30 minutes between Durham and Shotton, then direct to Peterlee via Burnhope Way and on to Sunderland via Easington Village, Dalton Park, New Seaham and Ryhope
- Service 23, as now every 30 minutes between Sunderland and Hartlepool, but with alterations to the timetable to fit with the new X21, 22 and 24
- Service 24, as now every 30 minutes between Durham and Shotton, then to Peterlee via Pennine Drive and Oakerside, then on to Hartlepool via Blackhall"

Looks like service 22 will be going direct to Peterlee bus station from A19 roundabout, service 21/21A will be going via Pennine Drive replacing service 22 in this area.

(05 Sep 2014, 2:47 pm)Michael Thanks for that cbma =)

Didn't Sunderland have a service to Darlington before?

(05 Sep 2014, 2:55 pm)Andreos Constantopolous Missing out Shotton by the looks of it.
Straight onto the A19 at the Castle Eden junction?

(05 Sep 2014, 2:58 pm)Jimmi Yes, for many years they had service 213 from Darlington to Sunderland and then it became the 21 in 2008 and was then sometime after that it was split at Peterlee to become service 31. The 31 was withdrawn in October 2012 with the direct link to Darlington lost.

(05 Sep 2014, 3:00 pm)Michael Thought there was... be interesting to see if anyone does the whole route!

As i'm quite rubbish at maths... can someone take a guess at this new PVR for the 21/X21...?

(05 Sep 2014, 3:08 pm)Jimmi I'd imagine the PVR will be 4.

I just hope its not Solo operated.

(05 Sep 2014, 3:12 pm)Michael 4 seems quite low for a route which already takes a while, and then will continue to Sunderland, me too, would the solo's cope with a extra 20-30 mins added on (at a guess of times for Peterlee to Sunderland times)

(05 Sep 2014, 3:16 pm)Jimmi Well the previous 21/31 had a PVR of 4 which took two hours from Darlington to Sunderland. The 21 it will take just under 1hour and a half to reach Peterlee from Darlington then another 20 odd minutes from Peterlee to Sunderland as the X21, so an overall journey time of just under two hours to Sunderland then another two hours to get back to Darlington.

Dread to think what Solos would be like down the A19, was bad enough the time I had one on the X24 down the A1.

(05 Sep 2014, 3:31 pm)Andreos Constantopolous Imagine DAF's?!
Enough to give gtom kittens!

(05 Sep 2014, 3:08 pm)Jimmi I'd imagine the PVR will be 4.

I just hope its not Solo operated.

(05 Sep 2014, 3:46 pm)Kuyoyo It sounds like the plans have changed again and 3 of the 21/X21 workings will be worked by the ex-demonstrator EcoCitys (which were at last count going on the 75/76) - as for the fourth board who knows.