(03 Jul 2022, 12:31 pm)Storx wrote Personally I'd look at areas separately and each operator have their patterns and if there's duplicates then who cares along as they're not serving the same areas.



Arriva Northumbria already have a pattern pretty much


1 - 2 - Blyth Local Services
X5 - X11 - Blyth / Cramlington Expresses
X14 - X18 - Morpeth Expresses
X20 - X22 - Ashington Expresses
30's - Ashington Local Services
40's - Great North Road Services
50's - North Tyneside Local Services
60+ - Unused bar 306/308.

imo. it doesn't really matter if there's a 57 in North Shields and a 57 in Heworth as they never overlap and are so far apart, it's better than having numbers like 354 etc. It only comes a problem when you have a GNE 1 and Stagecoach 1 serving the same stops in Newcastle.

The biggest problems is corridors like through Grangetown in Sunderland where you have a 2/2A/39/39A/60/61 doing pretty much the same route but with no connection at all. It's the easiest marketing ever to say there's 15 buses an hour along there but they don't if they're serious about the BSIP add the 22/23 aswell and it's 19 buses an hour.

Seems to be mostly the same within Durham and Darlington.

1-19 - Darlington/Bishop Auckland area local services
2x - East Durham local services 
3x - unused
4x - West Durham local services
5x - services via Bowburn/Coxhoe
6x - Durham City local services
7x - ???
8x - Bishop Auckland local services
9x - Barnard Castle local services

The X12, X26/X27 and X66/X67 seem to be the main exceptions here.