(05 Apr 2016, 2:45 pm)Dan wrote Why didn't you stand on the bus, if you could foresee the problem based on past experience on Arriva's buses? It's a 10-minute journey, so usually tolerable.
Alternatively, you could have waited for the next one. Usually if an X66 is that full, it's because it is actually the bus that was due 7 minutes ago, so it's carrying two loads worth of passengers.
The issue was when I boarded I didn't know that this would cause an issue especially as I have limited experience of StreetLite's, but I realised seconds after boarding and the next passenger who boarded sat next to me so I was stuck there really, also people had already started standing at the front by this point as well but there was still seats next to other people so I would have been in the way of people wanting to sit down if I stood up.
Problem is, you never truly know what numbers you are going to get on the X66, sometimes it can be heaving, others it can be dead, although I had already boarded and I thought I was going to be alright, but I wasn't.
It did seem like the bus was there for a while in Gateshead Interchange, possibly a late departure?