Re North Tyneside Rockets

In contrast the running times are pretty fair... and will be accurate in the medium term imo

This week has been particularly heavy traffic in North Tyneside/Killingworth especially

I drive to work and I make no apologies for this.. but this week a 15min 4mile journey has been taking 40minutes plus....

There is an increase on traffic on the roads in the area (I also drive work vans off peak time in the area) and congestion has been noticeable.

Only last week one of the days had a severe morning disruption with a hit and run in Forest Hall which disrupted services in general as I even had to do a diversion.

Timings is pretty fair if they were standalone routes however as they interwork that is the problem to give knock on delays.

The only solution to make them standalone routes is possibly to increase areas into timetables to make it say an hourly service etc...

Someone made reference to it being a waste of time going round Quorum and adding an extra 5 minutes...

I think that is positive as anyone who potentially has a job interview and use the route will go oh I know where that is because of bus.

With reference to adding an extra 5 minutes... (4min is allocated to go round Wiltshire Drive (that's a different debate)

I'm in favour of buses actually entering retail parks imagine say the 19 bus going down silverlink then turning left (at mcd) and drive into the retail park and then out the other end and through Tyne Tunnel bus only lane or even buses driving in Byker into the retail park and stopping at the bus stop that no buses use.

With North Tyne Rockets stopping outside the doors of Benton Asda perhaps will assist the elderly

This is just examples on improving services bus services should be competing against Taxi users as well as cars

What I do think would be beneficial (Dan) is that North Tyneside Rocket service is that an advert is placed on buses perhaps as traffic is bad apologising for delays but this is due to a number of factors with temporary lights schools etc..

And the A19

The A19 is down to one lane as a consequence cars are avoiding the A19 and using alternative routes

Driving to work used to be 15mins now its 30-40mins (bus sadly is 1hr 40 mins however most of my other journeys I do use bus as its cheaper it is just getting to work I use the car

The A19 has reccently changed the roadworks from Southbound to NorthBound so it is one lane as a consequence cars are using main roads as an alternative away from the A19


Roadworks should be complete well Nov 2023 on the A19 so it should eliminate some delays as most Rockets pass over the A19 to an extent