(01 Mar 2014, 11:53 pm)Bus_User wrote Metro Inspectors are certainly not Guardian angels but they are not the devils people are painting them to be. Infact tbh, the only people who hates them are more than likely be the people who dodges the system and gets caught. Quite frankly I don't like or hate them, I just show them my ticket and thats that and that would be the case for most people I'm sure if they do the same.
The Metro is expensive but if anyone remember the total chaos when the Metro went on a full day or two on strike will realise Tyne & Wear can't live without it and we should feel fortunate we have a light rail system in place if albeit, its showing signs of age and decline hence the money to modernise the system.
My friends and I certainly don't like Metro Inspectors because their attitude stinks and the stories you hear from regular commuters are just awful. Good manners cost nothing, and most of the Inspectors don't have good manners. I certainly don't 'dodge the system' as every day I travel by bus too, so always buy a Nexus CAT. My friends always purchase a Metro ticket too. The only time I have had to get on a Metro without purchasing a ticket was when my pass was not scanning at the station, Customer Services were useless, and I got off the Metro at the first opportunity to get on a bus instead.
The money going into modernising the system is pointless though. New rolling stock should have been purchased instead of re-refurbishing half of the Metrocars again - an attempt at making the job cheaper but in the long run, it's going to be more expansive. The system is unreliable because of the ancient Metrocars, and although it's very respectable in the sense that the frequency remains high until the last train, it's not the form of public transport I prefer. When it's a case of a 10-20 minute difference in journey time, I'll often take the bus just because I prefer it. In my opinion, it's safer (bus drivers would assert authority and ask someone to leave the vehicle if they were causing a nuisance - I've never seen a Metro driver do this?) In a large number of cases, there is an option of free Wi-Fi and power sockets on-board buses too.
As a kid I always used to think of the Metro as an appealing form of public transport because of the different coloured Metrocars (which is now being phased out) and because it was so fast (and now by the time you wait for the train, the comparable journey time by bus isn't so different). I've grown up to think quite the opposite.