North East BSIP: £804 Million Pound Plan For North East Buses
North East BSIP: £804 Million Pound Plan For North East Buses
Having a quick skim through there - honestly the entire thing seems pie in the sky.
The "Superbus" thing is an absolute minefield - let's be honest with current Sunday trading laws nobody needs a bus every 7 mins on a Sunday (given they have a category for this, I'm assuming they feel like multiple routes would fall into it). The resultant night network is baffling as well, and very Newcastle centric as per - the Durham to Bishop 6 is allegedly a Superbus route somewhere in the document yet doesn't get a nightbus?
Some of the "ITS"/bus priority things will simply never happen, or at least not in the scale they're talking about. Some of the places/amounts of money are bizarre too, whats the £255k for at Morpeth?
While I appreciate buses in the NE need to improve, and things like night buses and bus priority are part of that, this "plan" seems like over promise and under deliver by quite a large amount.
Had a bit of a chuckle at "However, from a customer perspective, the complex range of brands, different fare offers, and complex timetables have significant limitations and are not tied together through a unified bus network brand." in a paper fronted by the MD of a company introducing new brands like they're going out of fashion...
