They will be depot runs as up Houghton Cut, A19 and Washington Highway is fastest route back to depot, if they were heading for Newcastle they prob would have headed towards the A1.

Though it would be interesting to see which depot has the most dead mileage, I would assume Percy Main would be near the top as they have dead runs to / from places like Blyth, Cramlington, Gateshead, Ashington, Kingston Park, Wideopen to name some of the further afield places. But then you have to take into account if some of these vehicles do other duties, I discovered a few months back that one of the 309s that terminated in Blyth runs dead to North Shields to do a 310. Only discovered that when I followed a Cobalt Clipper all the way down the coast from Blyth to N Shields where it then blinded up for the 310 to Newcastle or Cobalt South.

I've seen companies in the past like Preston Bus and Cardiff Bus actually create services to eliminate some dead mileage, though I believe both have done away with the practise. Though Preston have numbered their staff service the 4 and it's available to the public too. But in the cast of Preston Bus, back before Rotala and Stagecoach. Services that terminated on the outskirts away from the depot like the Larches Estate for the 27, instead of running back to the depot, it would change to the 127, run along its normal route to a location where it can head towards the depot. This also enable them to claim BSOG even if no one used the service they were getting some money back.

If GNE were to use this example, they could create something like D prefixed services to avoid confusion with normal services. So any buses terminating at Wallsend could run as the D6 to Percy Main via High Street, Tynemouth Road and Wallsend Road. For the 19 dead runs to Ashington, you could have the D19, start it from the depot run it through Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate and Cobalt before joining the A19 at Holystone and run it direct to Bedlington then up to Ashington. Ok it might increase the drivers duties slightly but they get BSOG and possibly some revenue from those who work overnight like cleaners etc.