North East Buses

(11 Nov 2019, 9:16 pm)Jimmi wrote [ -> ]Covering for a breakdown I'm guessing? Pretty sure it's still a Darlington run.

(15 Nov 2019, 4:06 pm)BusLoverMum wrote [ -> ]Was about to comment that the 64 seems to be running in threes, thanks to lumiere, then a 4th one came past about 3 minutes after the other three.

Took me 45 minutes to get home from the arnison centre, by bus, yesterday afternoon. Only took me 25 minutes to walk there!

(15 Nov 2019, 5:20 pm)Stuartphin1639 wrote [ -> ]Everything is absolutely knackered by it, all of the 7s are between 5-50 minutes late at the minute

(19 Nov 2019, 6:37 pm)omnicity4659 wrote [ -> ]Older E400 parked at back of Ashington in full Journey Mark Sapphire livery... couldn't tell if it was a resident X21/X22 one or just passing through.

(19 Nov 2019, 7:30 pm)Jimmi wrote [ -> ]It's the long awaited replacement for 7513, it's a 56 plate ex London one (from Metroline I think?). Annoyingly can't seem to locate the photo I saw of it on Facebook to provide any more info

(19 Nov 2019, 7:30 pm)Jimmi wrote [ -> ]It's the long awaited replacement for 7513, it's a 56 plate ex London one (from Metroline I think?). Annoyingly can't seem to locate the photo I saw of it on Facebook to provide any more info

(21 Nov 2019, 10:49 am)Domc wrote [ -> ]Arriva have always been putting the wrong buses on the wrong route hence the fact I had a basic arriva pulsar on the x12 and my phone was dying but an x12 pulsar turns up on a route say the 56 it’s a bit annoying because it shouldn’t be on that route

(21 Nov 2019, 2:19 pm)Stuartphin1639 wrote [ -> ]Route branding has never worked with Arriva

I mean look at Darlington at the minute you have
X26/X27 branded vehicles on the 2
2 branded buses on the X21
X21 branded on the 2s albeit the branding has now been removed for the X21

As long as a bus is in service then people should be happy imagine how many buses would be off road if you could only allocate branded buses to route branded services

(21 Nov 2019, 2:43 pm)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]If Arriva had money to spend on keeping their buses on the road they wouldn't have the issue.
GNE have never really had a problem with branded allocations

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(21 Nov 2019, 9:25 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]To be fair, it's more with regulating buses and keeping them on time rather than buses being broken down. At least it is at Blyth and Haymarket anyway. Imagine it's the same in Darlington, Durham and Middlesbrough. Personally I'd rather have a bus on time rather than the correct allocation as I know most other people would.

GNE get around it by usually terminating buses short either at the Metro Centre and/or Gateshead which imo is worse from a passenger perspective.

(21 Nov 2019, 9:25 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]To be fair, it's more with regulating buses and keeping them on time rather than buses being broken down. At least it is at Blyth and Haymarket anyway. Imagine it's the same in Darlington, Durham and Middlesbrough. Personally I'd rather have a bus on time rather than the correct allocation as I know most other people would.
 
GNE get around it by usually terminating buses short either at the Metro Centre and/or Gateshead which imo is worse from a passenger perspective. 

(21 Nov 2019, 9:37 pm)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]It may look worse, but in reality GNE have so many buses between Newcastle and Gateshead that changing buses to go the extra few stops doesn't take that much time.

I know for Arriva in Durham, it's often not possible to terminate a bus early as most of them come from completely different directions, often sharing only 1 or two stops at most, certainly not an entire interchange. Whereas with GNE, pretty much all southbound services from Newcastle go via Gateshead, with Westbound services going via Metrocentre, so it's relatively easy to change.

I know when the X21 was terminated early at Gateshead, I was able to just catch the X1 to Gateshead and connect with the X21. Granted I have my monthly pass so if you were paying individually for a ticket it may have been more difficult, but even with the very short notice given by GNE over Twitter, it was possible.

(21 Nov 2019, 10:08 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]It's alright going into Newcastle but not so much the other way. If I was standing at the High Level Bridge, Market Street or Newgate Street in the rain at 7pm in the middle of winter without any idea that the bus I'm waiting for has been terminated at Gateshead and the next one isn't coming for 30 minutes I'd be less than amused. Not to mention drivers not knowing why I'm getting on with a return on different bus route etc.

I'd rather sit on one of the ex Varios at Blyth for an hour than wait for 30 minutes in the rain - if you've never been on one of those it's not something you would've wanted think the opposite of GNE's new buses.

(21 Nov 2019, 10:20 pm)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]Even still, those stops you mention have a bus leaving to Gateshead every few minutes. I think the main issue in these situations is the lack of communication, it would be good if there was a way for delays or cancellations to be communicated to passengers waiting at stops. This is why I think smart displays at stops should be rolled out, even if it's just an e-ink display in place of the regular timetable

The upside with GNE is that the buses have radio communication so it's possible for control to tell the drivers that passengers may board with the incorrect ticket, but Arriva don't have this luxury. I've even had drivers in the past stop at my stop to tell me that another service has been cancelled

(21 Nov 2019, 10:52 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]I still have to disagree. Even in that case, unless your at the bus stop 10 minutes early by the time you get realise you need to get a different bus and get on the bus. The original bus you we're meant to get will have gone from Gateshead anyway so your just waiting there for the 15 minutes or whatever instead. You might aswell wait around and be pissed off but save the bother.

As much as Arriva get things wrong I think swapping drivers and having breaks so they can regulate the buses and swap things around to keep things on time at terminus' is one of their better things. Simple fix, ditch sub branding where they know they do it especially at Jesmond with Sapphire, Max, and the Green buses all doing 3 bus routes they know they switch around. Similar at Blyth with the X7 - X11 and 308 and have one brand for the lot.

One thing I would say would be better regulation of buses. The amount of times you see 1, 2 or even 3 buses of the same bus route following each around rather than turning one back and/or running one out of service only dropping people off or telling them to get on the bus behind to get them back ontime. Stagecoach is by far the worst for this on the 1 and 62/63 in particular but you see it quite often on the 21, 56 and X1 aswell.

(21 Nov 2019, 10:52 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]I still have to disagree. Even in that case, unless your at the bus stop 10 minutes early by the time you get realise you need to get a different bus and get on the bus. The original bus you we're meant to get will have gone from Gateshead anyway so your just waiting there for the 15 minutes or whatever instead. You might aswell wait around and be pissed off but save the bother.

As much as Arriva get things wrong I think swapping drivers and having breaks so they can regulate the buses and swap things around to keep things on time at terminus' is one of their better things. Simple fix, ditch sub branding where they know they do it especially at Jesmond with Sapphire, Max, and the Green buses all doing 3 bus routes they know they switch around. Similar at Blyth with the X7 - X11 and 308 and have one brand for the lot.

One thing I would say would be better regulation of buses. The amount of times you see 1, 2 or even 3 buses of the same bus route following each around rather than turning one back and/or running one out of service only dropping people off or telling them to get on the bus behind to get them back ontime. Stagecoach is by far the worst for this on the 1 and 62/63 in particular but you see it quite often on the 21, 56 and X1 aswell.

(21 Nov 2019, 10:20 pm)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]Even still, those stops you mention have a bus leaving to Gateshead every few minutes. I think the main issue in these situations is the lack of communication, it would be good if there was a way for delays or cancellations to be communicated to passengers waiting at stops. This is why I think smart displays at stops should be rolled out, even if it's just an e-ink display in place of the regular timetable

The upside with GNE is that the buses have radio communication so it's possible for control to tell the drivers that passengers may board with the incorrect ticket, but Arriva don't have this luxury. I've even had drivers in the past stop at my stop to tell me that another service has been cancelled