(26 Jan 2022, 7:30 pm)Omega54 What do you think they should be going?
For me consolidation is key at this point which and the only way of achieving that is merging certain services together to make one route or by eliminating competition on shared corridors such as the Coast Road which has been mentioned numerous times.
I personally feel Go North East with everything that has gone on in the past 2 years with Covid that they kind of where they were at in 2006 before they done the major network shake up and cut the loose ends that weren't turning a profit and introduced brands to market the services, I don't think the branding aspect in the delivery of service is what is harming Go North East it's cutting and changing every few months, If they left things as they were and as the saying goes "If something isn't broke, don't fix it" then they'd find over time and i'm not talking short term but long term they'd have a more stable and reliable network of services and for me looking at their network of Services i'd say they only have a select few of these and those are their "Flagship Services" such as the Angel 21, Prince Bishops 20, City Rider 56 to name a few, whereas as had already been compared in previous posts on this thread both Stagecoach and Arriva have a higher amount of these as other than timetable tweaks for reliability and reductions in frequency over the same time period there services have barely changed. How many times have Go North East operated a 96 Service in West Gateshead to MetroCentre, cut it and merged with something else in this case the Coaster 1 as it was not turning a profit before reverting back to how it was several years later.
Looking at North Tyneside and their Percy Main operations i'd say they would better off handing the contracts for services 1/11/19 & 41/42/42A over to Stagecoach as they could easily merge together with their own core and very well established services at Wallsend which may well happen as part of BSIP or Enhanced Partnership, I also feel this would be of benefit to those who live in North Tyneside as they'd be provided with better Cross-City Links without needed to change Buses at Wallsend for example.
Elsewhere how many times has the Washington Mini Bus Ops been changed, is it still Simply Washington, Washington Street Shuttle, Indigo or Links Pinks, it's had that many changes even i'm getting lost as to whether it is 2022 or if i've time travelled back to 2006, the Venture Network in Stanley and Consett and the 33 in Sunderland are other examples I can think of straight off the top of my head, the developing pattern here has been established that as an Operator when it comes to services changes the same mistakes are made time and time again at Go North East, for me whoever makes those decisions really should be held accountable as they have played a major role the damage to the network we see today.
