Jamie M
16 Dec 2016, 4:41 pm
#266
(16 Dec 2016, 3:24 pm)Andreos1 There's always time for a post about buzzfare boundaries 
But the factors mentioned already and the factors mentioned previously will all come in to play at some point.
Say we discuss social factors, such as employment.
Compared to 25-30 years ago, this has changed massively across Derwentside.
The huge employers (such as British Steel at Consett or Ever Ready at Tanfield) have long gone and apart from smaller industrial estates that are reliant on SME's, vast swathes of brownfield land has been covered in housing estates - whose residents don't (and can't) all work in the Derwentside areas.
On Tyneside, manufacturing has been replaced by service sector industries and I will bet my last quid in Fozzes Bookies that a decent proportion of those employed, will be living in Derwentside.
In theory, demand for public transport on the Derwentside -> Tyneside corridor should be increasing and to levels beyond those seen when people lived and worked in their home towns.
Maybe it is?
The constant service and route consolidation along with the more or less guaranteed allocation of older vehicles to depots like Stanley over the last 30+ years (certainly as long as I can remember), would say that something isn't right somewhere.
This is true. I didn't however mention that the factors aforementioned were completely irrelevant - it just seems a bit blatant to throw out anything as being a cause for the financial situation, although extrememly easy given the media's representation and a logical reason behind doing so.
The fact that most of the older buses are rattling, slow, stinking metal sheds is a factor, but so is fuel prices going up. The prices of parts to fix and maintain the buses is probably going up, too. There are so many factors which have an effect, that I believe that it's a bit unfair to weigh out one as being the fundamental reason behind it.
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