RE: Go North East: Major Service Changes July 2022
(27 Jul 2022, 6:32 pm)F114TML wrote Probably because Nexus seem to have a rule that everyone should have a bus stop (with a service) within 400m of their house (presumably just a radius and not by walking distance). If a bus stop loses its commercial service and it serves people who have no other alternative bus within 400m, that service gets subsidised (hence the 39B). As to why the evening services are only hourly - I'm going to guess that either they can't afford it, or none of the bidders proposed a more frequent service for a descent price.
It's not a Nexus rule. See this guidance document:
https://www.ciht.org.uk/media/4459/buses...ion_v5.pdf
During the planning process, transport surveys will refer to that guidance in their report.
(27 Jul 2022, 6:36 pm)Malarkey wrote I said to the driver the 82 has been ran like a joke by Go North East over the years, firstly they were operating it commercially throughout the day/evening then were getting funding on an evening because it wasn't viable to operate, then at several points over the past 10 years the evenings have been contracted to another operators such as Arriva and Gateshead Central Taxis for a period before Go North East have then won the contract back.
We've discussed on this forum in the past about services being setup to fail, and I'm convinced the 82 was one of them. When it was changed to terminate at Waterview Park instead of Concord (via Barmston Village Centre), it was never going to work and if anything customer numbers would fall through the floor.
The Birtley side of it has never been great, but I suspect the other half was being supported by the traffic from Concord & Barmston, then moved to be placed into one service.
(27 Jul 2022, 9:58 pm)Andreos1 wrote Apart from people working in the various facilities that operate 24 hours a day, visiting family, hospital visits in Gateshead and Sunderland, having social lives locally and further afield etc?
Nah, nowt.
It's a place that doesn't need or deserve a better service and as a result, those people who could use a bus after 7pm will be encouraged to use alternative means of transport during the day.
But seriously, if it takes someone 5mins during the day to get from Ayton to one of the Asda RDC's in the car or a couple of buses, a change at the Galleries and the best part of 45mins - there's only going to be one winner. It goes without saying, it's going to be less attractive on nights. Even before the last lot of Nexus bail outs.
Ditto someone going from Blackfell to Nissan. A few mins in the car along the A1231 or two buses and a change at Concord or The Galleries. Looking at journey of potentially an hour plus depending on connections using public transport.
Donwell to BAE Systems via bus? Nah. Not even worth it.
Sulgrave to Rolls Royce? Someone might have completed it.
I've not even bothered working out how difficult it would be to get to other key employment sites beyond the Washington boundary, in places like Drum Industrial Estate or Team Valley.
I just know its pretty much impossible to see the value in ditching the car and making the switch to bus.
Another network of routes that doesn't work for anyone other than the operator.
As you've said in another post, there's over 67,000 living in Washington, so this shouldn't be rocket science. That actually grew by over 13,000 between the 2001 and 2011 census, yet bus services have gone the other way. At what point do we acknowledge that public transport provision has completely failed, in a market that one operator had an absolute monopoly?
Crowther for example is 2.2km from my house. It'd take 35 minutes to do it by bus, with the walk at each end. It'd only take about 40 minutes to walk the lot.
(27 Jul 2022, 10:23 pm)DeltaMan wrote Not to repeat the great MG, but car sized problems have car sized solutions
Washington, like most of the North East is dead after 1900. Its no surprise that buses have followed society in being dead behind the eyes after dark
If you're going to borrow from Martijn Gilbert's playbook, then let's talk about 'congestion busting'.
In Washington, you have a town that is perfectly suited to running a bus network. Just about every village has a bus link setup to allow bus priority via the quickest, most direct route, and the whole town is supported by trunk/distribution roads. The routes your buses are taking aren't the same ones being shared by HGVs/vans/the majority of cars, because planning prevents them taking those shortcuts.
You suggest Washington is dead, but those X1s and the Metro coming out of Newcastle right into the evening certainly are not. People rely on lifts from the Galleries though, because the alternative is usually a lengthy wait for a connection.
(27 Jul 2022, 10:37 pm)DeltaMan wrote So let's say a couple of units on the Crowther has a shift change at 10pm. 15 people leave at that time. 1 lives in the Birtley, 1 lives in Fawdon, 1 lives in Hebburn, 1 lives in Biddick. 1 lives in Barmston, 2 live in Portmeads, 2 live in Chester, 1 lives in Houghton, 1 lives in Pelton, 1 lives in Seaham, 1 lives in Cleadon and 2 live near Fewster Square. How do you provide a bus service for that? You can't unless you value placing large quantities of money in the bin and setting it alight.
I hate to sound radical, but how about actually meeting with business/industrial parks and understanding different employers' travel requirements? Could learn a thing or two and grow bus usage.
I'm not suggesting that is the sole responsibility of one operator, but surely this is the kind of data we need, in order to inform the development of a public transport network that works.
We seem to have a real problem when talking about public transport, and it always seems to come back to it being a waste of public money. We wouldn't say a street isn't entitled to electricity, running water or telephony, because it's only got four houses; they're basic services and we'd provide them.
. Massive contradictory comment from a bus operator.