Tees Flex

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Storx

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26 Jan 2023, 1:15 pm #57

(26 Jan 2023, 12:51 pm)Andreos1 I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but how would you then ensure that a big chunk of the buses weren't all in one area and the subsequent fuel costs increased as a result?

What's interesting about Teesflex, is that some people are using it over a commercial bus.
I was using it from Guisborough recently and a couple boarded it to Skelton. They got off a few mins walk from where the 5 would have dropped them, but saved a few quid in the process (even more if they had a return ticket).

I'm also aware of a friend of Mrs C using it over an 81.

We've used it as a group of 4, over an X3/X4 too.

That's one of my issues with it. In that it can be used as an alternative in some situations and I'm not sure that's what it's been designed for.

I'd say have some form of cap of how far where you can go, otherwise it will connect to a local service to complete the journey so it'd remove examples like above so say if someone wants to travel from one of villages to Middlesbrough it'd only go to Redcar or Guisborough and you'd have to change to one of the buses there and the same in return but someone in Redcar can also use it to do the same thing.

But the areas it would work well if done properly would be:

Work Buses:
Say James Cook has 20 nurses every evening / morning needing to get home have a bus which turns at 7pm prompt and it takes everyone direct to where they want to live. It would better than the current work services that exist imo. Places like Team Valley and Cobalt would be perfect for it and get arid of the likes of 939 attempting to go where people don't want to be even if it worked that'll be there waiting for the 07:35 X1 from Houghton at Washington Galleries and a few people can connect onto it.

Supermarket / Hospital Buses:
Pick up multiple pensioners to take them to the local supermarket or hospital appointments. Replace silly short taxi fares and connect people to where they want to be.

Hub Buses:
Connect to the latest hub and time it to connect with other services say in the Whitley Bay / Backworth area connecting with Metro trains at Northumberland Park and replace the likes of W1 and W2.

Evening Buses:
Merge taxi services at night where everyone is going to the same places with much reduced fares.

Outside of those what else is there really needed tbh. It's arguably the biggest gaps right now.