(18 Aug 2026, 9:41 am)GreenKai wrote Has anyone looked at what an intergrated service at Regent centre could do for the arriva routes going through that area?

I believe there are over 40 buses an hour each direction going down Gosforth high street.

What could be achieved if that was halved or even quartered with a bus service into town every 5 mins as well as the metro being available? Could that take the current loadings? What services would be best to increase if there were buses that were freed up from going into the city centre? Would it be able to free up a stand or two in Haymarket for other bus services?

I'm sure many have thought about it, but I would like to know what some of the challenges may be and if anyone has any detailed plans/suggestions for what could be achieved. If this is the wrong thread please let me know.

imo the Regent Centre is too close to Newcastle to really deal with the Arriva expresses, it would be annoying having to travel say 40 minutes on a bus to there, to then have to change for 10 minutes. It has to be the opposite way round.

You could make an argument with proper integration half the Blyth expresses don't need to exist and the train is the 'express' though. Newsham and Bebside aren't in a bad location to do the hub instead. 

You'd need a massive change in mind for that though. Similar with Cramlington if you dealt with the capacity issues on the ECML.

(18 Aug 2026, 9:52 am)Storx wrote imo the Regent Centre is too close to Newcastle to really deal with the Arriva expresses, it would be annoying having to travel say 40 minutes on a bus to there, to then have to change for 10 minutes. It has to be the opposite way round.

You could make an argument with proper integration half the Blyth expresses don't need to exist and the train is the 'express' though. Newsham and Bebside aren't in a bad location to do the hub instead. 

You'd need a massive change in mind for that though. Similar with Cramlington if you dealt with the capacity issues on the ECML.

Quite sobering to think for years that Arriva got away with "packing 'em in and running 'em late" every day until the Northumberland Line came along.

10 minutes late at Newsham (X10/X11), 10 minutes late at the Red Lion (X21/X22) every morning! X8 unusable North of Blyth until eventually swapped with X9 but too late!

Talking about limited stops / expresses. They took the old 44 off......again packed everyone onto 308s that were behind time by Billy Mill every morning. Then they had the cheek to take off the 11.40pm service back in 2017 (replaced by 306) despite creaming the money during the busy times, when it was clearly to get everything all back to Blyth and locked up at the same time when their trial of the late X10/X11 failed on a Friday & Saturday night.......didn't even try running it via Wideopen, Seaton Burn and Dudley as a 43E to give it a chance to make money!

Rant over, but I've got no sympathy for them about the Northumberland Line. They deserve what they got!

On the flip side, GNE had many "recession proof" services to the MetroCentre and Newcastle from similar sorts of demographic areas.......but have butchered them going on wonderful and non-logical mystery tours, yet they aren't far off the pre-October 2015 PVR with a certain company also plucking the gaps on Saturdays and school holidays.

(18 Aug 2026, 8:10 pm)L469 YVK wrote Quite sobering to think for years that Arriva got away with "packing 'em in and running 'em late" every day until the Northumberland Line came along.

10 minutes late at Newsham (X10/X11), 10 minutes late at the Red Lion (X21/X22) every morning! X8 unusable North of Blyth until eventually swapped with X9 but too late!

Talking about limited stops / expresses. They took the old 44 off......again packed everyone onto 308s that were behind time by Billy Mill every morning. Then they had the cheek to take off the 11.40pm service back in 2017 (replaced by 306) despite creaming the money during the busy times, when it was clearly to get everything all back to Blyth and locked up at the same time when their trial of the late X10/X11 failed on a Friday & Saturday night.......didn't even try running it via Wideopen, Seaton Burn and Dudley as a 43E to give it a chance to make money!

Rant over, but I've got no sympathy for them about the Northumberland Line. They deserve what they got!

On the flip side, GNE had many "recession proof" services to the MetroCentre and Newcastle from similar sorts of demographic areas.......but have butchered them going on wonderful and non-logical mystery tours, yet they aren't far off the pre-October 2015 PVR with a certain company also plucking the gaps on Saturdays and school holidays.

Aye agreed, have a feeling everyone else locally around here has similar feelings aswell. Probably the only thing that everyone agrees with in the local resident groups is that Arriva are crap which is saying something as they can't agree on anything. 

I really still don't understand why iSquared kept the Arriva name personally. It's meaningless and has an absolutely horrible reputation, as an understatement, and it's not just a local or passenger issue either. Could've been an opportunity to turn itself around but they've just continued the failings tbh. 

imo unless you have zero choice there's no incentive to use the bus if you live in Cramlington, Bedlington, Ashington, Seaton Valley or Blyth. Old knackered buses, unreliable, not particularly frequent anymore (every 30 minutes for the vast majority of people), slow, rude drivers (especially if comparing to Northern conductors) and more expensive than the train for Newcastle trips. All 'great' selling points tbh.

Positives... I'm genuinely struggling.