Personally I still think DRT will be the future but ran by someone like Uber. You go on an app, and choose where you want to travel and it gives a prediction on how long it will take to travel there by a bus being routed via stops. I know the small dabbles in it so far haven't done so well but I still think there's potential but more for a taxi replacement than anything.

They'd work very well at night imo at places like factories or pub kicking out time. If there's 100 workers going to certain places all in a similar area then it would be easy to route it around to serve multiple areas. Similar with pubs out of Newcastle when you'll see a flow of taxis all heading to the same places; Jesmond, Heaton in particular especially if the pricing was right.

Like for example around where I live near Blyth you might have 3 people wanting to go to Sainbury's at Monkseaton, 2 to Tynemouth Morrison's, 2 people wanting to go to Silverlink and 5 going to Newcastle. It'd be easy to have a bus that picks people for each of them then go non-stop from Silverlink to town while moving people from Sainburys between the two at the same time. Even if it diverted by an estate around Monkseaton.

It'd need work but imo it's the realistic future and fixes the problem we keep having about buses going to the 'wrong' places.