(29 Oct 2013, 10:44 am)fozzovmurton wrote Talking about services running in pairs, the 60 and 42 is shocking at times, they often run in pairs, on the 60 I have seen it run in 3's at points with pairs holding up the rear a single number of minutes behind

The 42 I would argue is worse than the 60. The 60 gets 5 minutes layover at Sunderland & just 1 minute at Parkside, but also gets 1 minute stand-by at Seaham Interchange which can help in lateness. The 42 however only gets 2 minutes stand-by at Sunderland Interchange and then 1 minute at Vicarage Estate. The 42 is one of those services where reliability is really bad I've noticed buses running in pairs much more frequently than the 60/20/56 etc. The 42 runs an every 11 minute timetable after 2:30pm, I assume this is to improve the terrible reliability.

I don't get how GNE can promise this 'Gold Standard' promise of 'Buses can run up to 5 minutes late' when there services don't have that time to make up at interchanges? The X35 is this included in 'Gold Standard'? X35 gets 3 Mins layover at Hartlepool & 4 minutes at Sunderland, but if this service runs exactly 5 minutes late (as is just within 'Gold Standard On Time') it's getting into Sunderland 1 minute after departure and then the four minutes is needed to load passengers on it never leaves on time so an extra two minutes, it's running out 6 Minutes and then there's not much chance to recover. So how is this service ever ment to recover any lateness? Its not.