Disruptions and driver shortages
Disruptions and driver shortages
(13 Dec 2023, 11:13 am)Adrian I agree. I think as a company, they do a lot of nonsense stuff, but this isn't one of them. It's something that provides real value to communities, for the reasons you mention in your post.
Furthermore, it's likely to be ran by managers or volunteers, who otherwise wouldn't be on the road.
See, I don't think they can develop a plan solely. They've two options available IMO; the 'do nothing' approach or the nuclear option.
The 'do nothing' approach would be to continue to run as is, then regulate (or not, as the case usually is nowadays) buses that are running considerably late. The impact of this is that there's no real timetable for buses in/out of Newcastle and journey times are considerably increased. The benefit is that customers can continue to get a bus to/from Newcastle, if they're willing to persevere for long enough.
The nuclear option is to terminate everything at Gateshead Interchange. The benefit is that everything should run on time, and if it doesn't, it'll almost certainly start the trip away from Gateshead on time. Your average X1 trip, you're saving 28 minutes by not doing Gateshead > Newcastle > Gateshead. The downside of this is that all passengers would have to change at Gateshead Interchange and use the Metro, which at peak times, I don't think would be able to cope with the increase in passenger numbers. The withdrawal of the Monkseaton to Pelaw peak services doesn't help with this. There's also the question of whether Metro would allow ticket acceptance, given that every time they need it from bus operators, the receipt book comes out...
Unless TNE, Newcastle City Council and the operators can come up with a sensible diversionary route with bus priority, then I think the nuclear option is probably the only way forward.
(13 Dec 2023, 11:13 am)Adrian I agree. I think as a company, they do a lot of nonsense stuff, but this isn't one of them. It's something that provides real value to communities, for the reasons you mention in your post.
Furthermore, it's likely to be ran by managers or volunteers, who otherwise wouldn't be on the road.
See, I don't think they can develop a plan solely. They've two options available IMO; the 'do nothing' approach or the nuclear option.
The 'do nothing' approach would be to continue to run as is, then regulate (or not, as the case usually is nowadays) buses that are running considerably late. The impact of this is that there's no real timetable for buses in/out of Newcastle and journey times are considerably increased. The benefit is that customers can continue to get a bus to/from Newcastle, if they're willing to persevere for long enough.
The nuclear option is to terminate everything at Gateshead Interchange. The benefit is that everything should run on time, and if it doesn't, it'll almost certainly start the trip away from Gateshead on time. Your average X1 trip, you're saving 28 minutes by not doing Gateshead > Newcastle > Gateshead. The downside of this is that all passengers would have to change at Gateshead Interchange and use the Metro, which at peak times, I don't think would be able to cope with the increase in passenger numbers. The withdrawal of the Monkseaton to Pelaw peak services doesn't help with this. There's also the question of whether Metro would allow ticket acceptance, given that every time they need it from bus operators, the receipt book comes out...
Unless TNE, Newcastle City Council and the operators can come up with a sensible diversionary route with bus priority, then I think the nuclear option is probably the only way forward.
