(16 Jul 2017, 10:00 am)Dan wrote The flip side of the coin is that the X9/X10 services don't have enough layover time at either end to recover after incurring delays, and if a bus arrives in 10 minutes late, it's guaranteed to depart late by the time everyone alights and then boards again, meaning that a lot of journeys take more time than scheduled to, already.I agree with this.
This change would presumably only add around 5 minutes onto the timetable in either direction (i.e. roughly the same amount of time as what a lot of customers are being inconvenienced by already, due to lack of appropriate layover time), so in reality, this change would just provide a more realistic and achievable timetable, whilst also opening up new, direct links for passengers, which would hopefully grow the services in order to pay for the extra bus being added to the PVR.
Apart from the Heworth-Newcastle stint, the X9 an X10 are entirely different route, which means that each one is effectively only hourly for the vast majority of its customers. A missing X9 or X10 is more than a daily occurrence, currently, which amounts to a 2 hour gap in service (because Newcastle - Heworth is more than adequately duplicated by the 27, even if you need to use different stops in Newcastle city centre)
Even if you live in Peterlee and work in Newcastle, if your X9 is a no show (ignoring the X10 because it barely skirts by), either because of a faulty vehicle (hopefully will be fixed, by September) or bad traffic (less controllable) then if you have the necessary GNE pass, you're shafted. it's either idle to Sunderland on the 56, be lucky enough to get on an X36 or make your way to Sunderland via Washington (assuming the pass you have covers the relevant zones). Stil takes well over an hour. By the time you've crawled into Peterlee on the X5/6/7, your journey time has more than doubled from the reasonable just under an hour you were banking on. OK if you have no commitments and a strong baldder, but not good if you need to pick up kids from childcare or get to another job or caring role.
The only way to speed it up is to pay for a Metro or Stagecoach ticket. 5 extra minutes to reach Dalton park, as annoying as it is is a small consideration, really.