(31 Dec 2014, 3:04 pm)Jimmi wrote The 21 used to run every 10 minutes and the reliability was poor with it often running in twos across the whole route and they had to rectify the problem by adding extra buses to the PVR and increasing the layover time in Durham and Newcastle but there was still problems then it was changed to run every 7/8 minutes between Newcastle and Chester with the service continuing to Durham every 15 minutes and this has helped with reliability, it's not perfect but still better than it was.
I've just tried to come up with a timetable for the service running every 20 minutes to Durham with no luck whatsoever.
The current timetable allows for the following layover periods:
- 12 minutes in Durham
- 7 minutes in Newcastle
- 13 minutes in Chester-le-Street
The long layover periods are the reason why we often see two buses at a terminus. In theory, it should be a walk-on service in Newcastle, and I've experienced this myself and assumed the previous one would have been a few minutes late without looking at the timetable. Problems mid-route are simply down to the way such frequent services end up working, as the smallest of problems can make that bus drop a few minutes and it's an ongoing cycle whereby the bus ends up bunching up to the one behind.