(16 Dec 2016, 12:20 pm)Michael wrote The whole buzzfare zone thing needs re-modeling but that's a post for another day

There's always time for a post about buzzfare boundaries

(16 Dec 2016, 2:31 pm)Jamie M wrote Whatever has been said isn't representative of all divisions, nor does it have to be. Derwentside and it's interconnecting links to itself and nearby cities is a complete monopoly. The amount of fares over 3£ paid is ludicrous. On evenings, on a 6 from say newcastle to stanley and everywhere else in the world, you can expect numbers of about 60 passengers. There are very few concessions around at this time. Most of these people have week tickets (or netone) (around 40£), or three zone buzzfare which is 100£ a month, or single paying (3£) quite a few the full fare (4£90). The fact that the road network is awful makes taking the bus more appropriate for most from this area. There are traffic jams everywhere, most of which the 6 avoids, too.

The buses used on route 6 are buses which just about function. Passengers always complain about them to the drivers. It's not a good experience, but it doesn't have to be. There is no need for comfort, because these people will always take the bus - no matter how uncomfortable and or expensive their trip is.

I have no idea how numbers are elsewhere, but you have to consider both aspects. Passenger loss isn't just down to fequency and quality of the service, especially where there is literally no competition. There are also social impacts, to consider. I spent many long and hard hours studying population shifts, I refuse to go back to explaining it, but the important thing to note is that people can make statistics mean anything they wish to, without considering alternative perspectives. In essence, people go out of their way to draw conclusions about results and make them represent something.

For this reason, I'm not prepared to blame the loss on anything until there is a direct cause, released publically - with actual data to support - which isn't skewed to mean something.

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But the factors mentioned already and the factors mentioned previously will all come in to play at some point.

Say we discuss social factors, such as employment.
Compared to 25-30 years ago, this has changed massively across Derwentside. 
The huge employers (such as British Steel at Consett or Ever Ready at Tanfield) have long gone and apart from smaller industrial estates that are reliant on SME's, vast swathes of brownfield land has been covered in housing estates - whose residents don't (and can't) all work in the Derwentside areas.

On Tyneside, manufacturing has been replaced by service sector industries and I will bet my last quid in Fozzes Bookies that a decent proportion of those employed, will be living in Derwentside. 

In theory, demand for public transport on the Derwentside -> Tyneside corridor should be increasing and to levels beyond those seen when people lived and worked in their home towns.
Maybe it is?
The constant service and route consolidation along with the more or less guaranteed allocation of older vehicles to depots like Stanley over the last 30+ years (certainly as long as I can remember), would say that something isn't right somewhere.