(26 May 2023, 6:41 am)Jimmi wrote I can certainly see more of this happening across the board, Arriva are going further down this route again with the 23 losing trips to enable the buses to work the East Durham College contracts in the upcoming timetable changes, service 8A between Ferryhill and Spennymoor being another which will supposedly help to keep this service viable. Arriva have done this in the past in Durham when the likes of the 43 and 56 had dropouts for Durham Johnston School contracts.

Stagecoach has done it for years with 3, 4, 12 and 13 in Sunderland and 22 in Newcastle aswell.

Both run their full route in or out of the city at peak times then drop onto the X1 or 22X from Doxford Park or Cobalt respectively. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see it work on more of the Newcastle / Sunderland routes where they're very busy in one direction but dead in the other direction at peak times. 

The 39/39A with GNE could be a good route for it with shorts running in the peak doing Doxford Park to Sunderland on the 39 route then dropping onto the X20 then dropping back onto another short 39 and repeat. 

I'm surprised there isn't more peak boards ie. a 7.30am peak from Stanley for example which then drops onto a school bus board before going for maintenance for 4 hours then dropping on the later school board and doing the return journey. I believe it's what the X30 does at Ashington nowadays and provides needed peak journeys and a drop during the day when they're most dead.