It's this part that confusing so much on the X8/X9 change
X9 From Cramlington, the service will operate via the existing Service X8 route to Newcastle.
X8 From Cramlington, the service will operate via the existing Service X9 route to Newcastle.
This is the entire thing on their website
What is changing?
We’re swapping the routes of Service X8 and X9 between Cramlington and Newcastle, plus a revision to which service operates via Amersham Road, to ensure reliability and punctuality of the revised services.
Why are we doing this?
We’re responding to lots of customer suggestions and queries regarding overall journey time from various areas of Blyth to Newcastle. Customers have identified that particularly those who live the furthest, have services that operate longer journey times between Cramlington and Newcastle.
These changes are designed to improve journey times, particularly for passengers who travel the furthest, but also balance the journey times by service, which has longer term punctuality and reliability improvements, as the services are all operationally linked (in that the same pool of vehicles operate on all three services across the day).
How does it affect me?
94% of existing passengers on Services X7, X8 and X9 will see either no change or a bus service number change only, as part of these revisions. Unfortunately, this does mean that 6% of existing passengers will see some change or potentially require a connecting service to complete their journey after 27 March.
Service X7
If you currently travel on Service X7, your journey is unaffected, all existing boarding points will continue to be observed as they do now.
Service X8
If you currently travel on Service X8 and board anywhere between Blyth Bus Station and Cramlington, your bus will show Service X9 instead and it will operate the exact same route between Blyth and Cramlington as the current Service X8. From Cramlington, the service will operate via the existing Service X9 route to Newcastle.
Service X9
If you currently travel on Service X9 and board anywhere between Blyth Bus Station and Cramlington (except Amersham Road, please see separate note below), your
If you currently travel on Service X9 and board anywhere between Blyth Bus Station and Cramlington, your bus will show Service X8 instead and it will operate the exact same route between Blyth and Cramlington as the current Service X8 (omitting Amersham Road). From Cramlington, the service will operate via the existing Service X8 route to Newcastle.
Amersham Road to Cramlington
If you do currently use Service X9 on Amersham Road, your new service will be Service X7, which will be revised to operate via Amersham Road, replacing Service X9.
We do appreciate a small number of customers will regrettably lose a direct link to Cramlington because of this, however several alternative services will continue to operate via Plessy Road and Rotary Way, providing that direct link.
Links to Regent Centre and Quorum
Due to the changes in route, there will be some changes to which routes buses take into Newcastle compared to now. We’ve seen demand significantly reduce from these locations due to changes in working from home practices and flexible working arrangements, which also means demand into Newcastle now significantly outweighs any other demand – as a result, we’re prioritising these key passenger flows.
Connections between X7, X8 and X9 can still be made either in Cramlington (X8, X9) or Newcastle (All) to permit journeys as required.
Making changes to how services operate that directly affects journeys people need to make are not taken lightly and, in this case, these revisions benefit significantly more people than current arrangements, which we believe ensures we’re providing the best possible service for as many people as possible
