(15 Jan 2017, 10:26 am)Michael wrote 12 and 13 haven't had any cuts in this upcoming changes, so they must be doing ok on a 20 minute frequency (10 combined)

Yes; but if passengers currently buying a dayrider for £3.95 opt to purchase a return of £2.60 instead (£1.35 difference), and the reduction in price doesn't attract enough passengers to cover this, further cutbacks could come in the future.

In order to make £395.00, Stagecoach need to sell 100 dayriders. If all 100 of these passengers opt for a £2.60 return instead, they'd only make £260.00 (a loss of £135.00). They'd have to attract an additional 52 passengers buying return tickets to cover the loss, in this example. If Stagecoach only manage to attract an additional 30 passengers from Go North East, they won't have covered their losses, and Go North East's profits will be dented too, potentially resulting in cutbacks on both Stagecoach and Go North East's services in this area.

Obviously it's not quite as simple as that, but just to throw a few simple numbers into the equation. Competition can be great for passengers (and I think the X24 is a great example of this), but competition in areas where there is already dense competition, has the chance to backfire and at the detriment of passengers.