That map is really interesting and does reinforce the issues .
I'm doing some work on Colleague Commutes at the moment and we have some backup emergency sites (that we normally use for power or data loss etc) that we've activated for colleagues in the area to use down at Team Valley around Kingsway North during the strikes and also it's handily placed around our annual testing.
What was quite stark is that unless you stick to the workers services which don't really work around modern shift patterns, it's quicker to commute via bus to Newcastle from Birtley than it is to Kingsway North - you're looking roughly at 30 mins for the former and anywhere between 35-52 minutes for the Valley commute
A journey of around 3 miles that can be made by car in 8 minutes to one of the major employee centres in the region
RE: Reversing the decline in passenger numbers
Wistfully stuck in the 90s