(28 Jan 2015, 2:45 pm)Malarkey wrote Sapphire Service 7 - Durham to Darlington
Having used the Service for the first time on Monday there are few changes I think could benefit the Service.
- Upgrade in Frequency to Every 10 Minutes
- Development at Durham Gate
- Several Housing Developments Across the Route
Think what is noted above would be enough to justify an Upgrade.
I would love to see the 7 be increased to every 10 minutes but I don't think this will happen because it would mess up the frequency of providing a bus from Darlington - Newton Aycliffe roughly every 7/8 minutes combined with the 5/5A, 8 and 21 so you'd end up with a complete mess of buses slotted in between 7's so it would end up being every 10 minutes for a bus at times, the only other you could do is increase the 8/21 to every 30 minutes so that they could slot in between the 7's which would mean a bus from Darlington - Newton Aycliffe roughly every 5 minutes.
I will say the 7 can be pretty busy during the daytime with very few seats can be left across various parts of the route especially Darlington Centre - Harrowgate Hill which often ends up leaving with standees.
One thing I'd love to see happen is the 7 be increased to every 30 minutes on Sunday daytimes as some journeys on a morning and afternoon can be pretty busy, the two I got around 11am on Sunday in both directions were pretty busy, although some journeys aren't as busy as Dan will probably tell you from his experiences of the 7 on a Sunday. This will probably never happen as the 7 used to run every 30 minutes on a Sunday before and didn't do quite well.
Some journeys at peak times can be absolutely rammed which will be why some Enviro 400's have been purchased for this route and a morning journey to Framwellgate Moor is currently duplicated on a morning.