(03 May 2023, 11:02 am)Storx wrote It's complete absurd though. The whole North East should be one transport area not two. There's not a sudden change travelling from Newton Aycliffe to Darlington it's all one community pretty much.
The political boundaries are a complete mess especially when it comes to places like Bishop Auckland and Newton Aycliffe which are massively connected to Darlington with 2 trains and at least 6 buses an hour.
Now those corridors will be ignored as they're both 'out of zone'. It's questionable how connected Darlington is with the rest of Teesside aswell, there's more buses and trains to Durham than there is to Middlesbrough for example.
There's always going to be boundaries like this though. There'll always be someone missing out where you draw the line, the only way this could be resolved is by a national strategy so all buses have subsidised fares, like the £2 single, although I'm sure people on the Scottish borders will have similar troubles.
The team briefing for GNE mentions that the £1 fare for the X10 is only valid as far as Peterlee from Newcastle, good luck to their drivers trying to enforce that.