(24 Dec 2017, 8:32 pm)Adrian wrote Say it costs £23 per hour to run each bus (which is what the QCS costings estimated), then you're looking at £690 per hour to have two vehicles out on each of those routes, for every hour. Are you really going to take at *least* that per hour in fares? Even meeting that would not be enough, as unfortunately most commercial operators have their own targets to meet. Just breaking even has an impact on overall profit figures.
But if GNE offered fares similar to Lothian (£3.50) for those who go out after 6pm for the evening then that would entice more people to use the service than getting in a taxi home thus covering the costs of running each bus per hour, perhaps trialling the cheaper fare offering on the N21/N56 first before looking at expansion of the Night Network.
Flip side of the coin think of how much it must cost to run a taxi per hour, more so if a taxi who usually operates the Asda rank at The Galleries ends up doing pick ups from Newcastle, Sunderland or Durham which a driver I had on friday night was going to do after he dropped off with my xmas shopping, so like the bus operator is a taxi firm breaking even and is that impacting overall profit figures.