Go North East: Service Suggestions v2
Go North East: Service Suggestions v2
(17 Sep 2020, 9:59 am)tcts24 In 38 years of being alive, at no point do I ever remember assuming 2 different services went to the same places because of similarities in route number. When I was a child, United service 10 from Middlesbrough went to Hartlepool, United and Northern joint service X10 went to Newcastle (as it still does), so it's nothing new.
Route numbers exist for customers to differentiate between what bus goes where. Stood in Sunderland and looking for a bus to Souter Lighthouse, having buses with only a destination of "South Shields" on it's and no number isn't too helpful as they all take seperate routes. As they're numbered either 20, E1, E2, or E6, then it's easy to identify that I'd need to be on the E1 to South Shields. Those four routes could respectively be numbered 974, 74G, EGY74 and D74J and it would would make no difference at all, because I'd still know which bus I'd need to catch to Souter Lighthouse, regardless of whatever route identifier it's displaying.
The use of dots and dashes is novel, but could potentially cause the confusion your trying to avoid between a 1.1 and 11. The use of alphanumeric indentifiers for route variations are more legible on a destination board.
And suggesting that it's "fair enough" for seperate operators to number their routes similarly is bizarre. From my experience of talking to people, the average person on the street can not identify one operator from another. This is especially relevant when dealing with Go-Ahead, who constantly swap and change routes, route numbers, bus colours (both inside and out) and bus types. While you and I can tell the difference, the only non bus spotters that'll care about the two service 8's in Sunderland are those that use them and they will already know whether they need to be on a 8 to Stanley or an 8 to South Hylton. On average, the colour of the bus or who's name is plastered across the side of it won't matter in the slightest and probably won't even get noticed.
(17 Sep 2020, 9:59 am)tcts24 In 38 years of being alive, at no point do I ever remember assuming 2 different services went to the same places because of similarities in route number. When I was a child, United service 10 from Middlesbrough went to Hartlepool, United and Northern joint service X10 went to Newcastle (as it still does), so it's nothing new.
Route numbers exist for customers to differentiate between what bus goes where. Stood in Sunderland and looking for a bus to Souter Lighthouse, having buses with only a destination of "South Shields" on it's and no number isn't too helpful as they all take seperate routes. As they're numbered either 20, E1, E2, or E6, then it's easy to identify that I'd need to be on the E1 to South Shields. Those four routes could respectively be numbered 974, 74G, EGY74 and D74J and it would would make no difference at all, because I'd still know which bus I'd need to catch to Souter Lighthouse, regardless of whatever route identifier it's displaying.
The use of dots and dashes is novel, but could potentially cause the confusion your trying to avoid between a 1.1 and 11. The use of alphanumeric indentifiers for route variations are more legible on a destination board.
And suggesting that it's "fair enough" for seperate operators to number their routes similarly is bizarre. From my experience of talking to people, the average person on the street can not identify one operator from another. This is especially relevant when dealing with Go-Ahead, who constantly swap and change routes, route numbers, bus colours (both inside and out) and bus types. While you and I can tell the difference, the only non bus spotters that'll care about the two service 8's in Sunderland are those that use them and they will already know whether they need to be on a 8 to Stanley or an 8 to South Hylton. On average, the colour of the bus or who's name is plastered across the side of it won't matter in the slightest and probably won't even get noticed.
