(14 Aug 2013, 3:21 pm)gtomlinson wrote On the Consultations
The last Gateshead one.
For the X21 the 3 most requested stops were Low Fell Town Centre, Harlow Green and Birtley Station Lane. None of these are served.
1/3 of people wanted Pilgrim Street as a terminus as it was more convenient. Buses serve Eldon Square
52% were in favour of low floor single deck buses on the X21. Pronto is operated by double deck services.
60% of people thought it was a good idea to simplify fares to offer better value tickets - Angel Saver price rose.
81% of people DIDN'T CARE about the plans to shorten the Coaster Route and terminate it at Gateshead, but apparently they do now
Kibblesworth customers wanted more important links to Gateshead and Newcastle. Birtley and Chester Le Street were not important. - Waggonway diverted through Kibblesworth.
41% were against a Waggonway diversion to Kibblesworth - Waggonway serves Kibblesworth
Four key themes came out, one was
'Concerns over reliability and increased journey times on service 28A' - Since the changes the Waggonway is arguably GNE's most unreliable service (most likely due to stock)
When it comes to consultation, one of my favourites is always the first one they done - Metrolink. Baring in mind that the route was via Herrington Burn when it the consultation was ran.
Question : "We plan to increase the daytime frequency of service M1 to operate every 10 minutes during the daytimes Monday to Saturday between Heworth, Concord, Galleries and Houghton. What do you
think of this idea?"
Answer : "70% of respondents thought that our plan to increase the daytime frequency of the M1 to every ten minutes between Heworth and Houghton-le-Spring would create a ‘much more convenient’ service. Only 4% said that this would be ‘less convenient’ or ‘much less convenient’."
Result : M1 re-routed away from 1/3 of it's route, to work Fencehouses instead.
Potentially everyone who filled that survey in living in the Herrington/Philidelphia/Newbottle area would have been strongly for that increase in service. Who wouldn't be? If that's not misleading customers I don't know what is.
Worth pointing out a few other points too. After all it was the company that proposed these changes. Not the public.
"76% of people said that refurbishing the buses on the M1 and using bigger vehicles on the M2/M3 would be a ‘big improvement’ to the service." - yet to happen.
"82% of people said that providing ‘real-time’ information at M1 bus stops would be ‘extremely helpful’ or ‘very helpful’ when travelling." - yet to happen.