(17 May 2022, 8:38 am)Rob44 wrote Like on an evening the 21 followed by the 25 'followed by the 28b along low fell all withing 5 minutes of eachother. Then in the other direction the 28b times to leave gateshead 2 minutes after the 21 towards Chester le street.... from a differnet stand. ITS AS IF GNE WANTS THE 28B TO RUN EMPTY HMMMMAnd they wonder why they can't make them viable...
(17 May 2022, 10:37 am)stagecoachbusdepot wrote I do think this is a really valid point that is worthy of some form of scrutiny - whether that be via the media or elected members or whatever. It does seem that services haven't been given a chance with fairly recent 'fit for the future' changes then huge numbers of journey cancellations pretty consistently ever since - how can they possibly know if low usage is because too few people want to travel, or more that they have been unable to due to abysmal reliability.Agree with everything you've said here, but the BIB caused me to choke on my Horlicks last night.
The whole subsidy debate is a tricky one as it probably serves noone to ban an operator from bidding, but equally it is galling to say the least to hear Martijn openly gloating that they know the LAs have cash set aside which will plug some of the gaps, which they hope to win. Hopefully for GNE none of the funders or media will spot that video, hardly paints them in a socially responsible light. On balance I think the fairest model would be, where an operator has walked away from the commercial service, then the LA stumps up the cash to run the service, the LA should retain any fares. If the service turns out to be profitable, the LA recoups some of it's outlay.
Noticed the bad news and brazen cheek, was sandwiched in between a few positive bits. Maybe nobody noticed?