(06 Sep 2021, 2:14 pm)Drifter60 wrote I still can’t help but get slightly annoyed that council funds are being used for this sort of route. I can see rural areas - Burnhope being a good example - that funding a commercial service doesn’t always add up, but are we expected to believe the 71 that links two towns on pretty much a direct route with business parks in close proximity at both sides, retail offerings available in both locations plus leisure opportunities at Seaham and a new retail park in Houghton isn’t enough to sustain an hourly Monday-Saturday daytime service? If it’s not, then marketing has failed somewhere. I’m glad the route is saved as it would be a vital missing link, however call me syndical, but I can’t help but feel the bus company knew the council would do just that and get the cheque book out. I can sort of see the 28/28A (even though I still think it’s a strange terminus for the 28A) as it does do a bit of magical mystery tour of those villages west of Chester. But even then, has the travel pattern of people in Pelton Fell, Grange Villa and Beamish changed that much considering the 28 has been largely unchanged for well over a decade now?
It will be interesting to see what happens with those routes - the 28/71 in particular, you can imagine it’ll be an inconvenience for passengers if further down the line a tendered service is given to Arriva or Stanley Travel. You’ll not be able use GNE tickets when in both communities GNE is pretty much the sole operator, with the odd exceptions. I mean might as well not be under any illusion regards the new 730, 734 and 643 routes longer term. If the 925,938 are anything to go by, they’ll be withdrawn at the next set of changes for better or worse.
Agree with a lot of what you say. I've been thinking lately that one of the biggest problems in the bus industry these days is there is a lack of competition! When I was a lad in the eighties/nineties there were a heck of a lot more independent operators. Where I live in Washington there was the likes of Calvary Coaches, and St George Travel also serving the town. Then in Sunderland you had likes of Redby, Jolly, Micheal Franks etc and then further a field you had good size operators such as OK Travel and Classic and I could name a lot more too.
Back then if one of these operators launched a service GNE would quickly launch one in return. More often than not this would result in the smaller operator retreating as they could not compete with the big operator. Those that did manage to hold their own and put up a real fight would be bought out in the end. I'm sure this was the case with the likes of St George Travel as they were expanding their network at the time and I'm sure GNE bought them out by making them an offer they couldn't refuse.
Today there are significantly less independent operators around and the big companies dominate and say they have to cut this and cut that and become more and more streamlined. It does beg the question though if there were still as many independent operators around now would there be as many service cuts? I doubt it and I bet they could find buses and drivers at the drop of a hat to create new services to take on the independents!