(30 Dec 2019, 6:47 pm)streetdeckfan wrote So is Durham to West Auckland. And the issue is it still will be even after the X21 extends there.
The only people who will be using the X21 over the 6 are the people who are coming from the north, where GNE already serve.
The others more than likely connect to a different Arriva service in Durham, so it would make no sense for them to switch to the X21 instead.
Until GNE start offering more services in Durham (ie, relaunching services they sold to Arriva), the X21 extension to West Auckland is likely to be a failure, or at least not as successful as they hope
This is the issue with each operator having their own territory, there is no competition
What the government didn’t realise for deregulation that bigger operators would buy or run other companies to the ground and carve up there own areas and charge what there like as the passenger needs to get from A to B and have to use that bus service, this is probably why car ownership has grown over the years as if the passenger needs to get to there destination A to B then the passenger these days it’s more like from A to Z and have to go through the alphabet to get to Z .
You can blame the government/EU for no competition left
Regarding the Durham to Darlington corridor, the original 723 which were jointly operated by arriva/northern was carved up as Arriva took the Durham to Darlington section and northern took the Newcastle to Durham section , same as the 230 and 231 with arriva taking the 230 while northern took the 231, and between the X1 and X10, with arriva taking the X1 while northern took the X10, the list goes on.
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