Surely on what would be a more chaotic day than usual, people would appreciate why buses were running together, even on the 15 minute frequency between Chester-le-Street and Durham?

I am not going to hold back from speculating that the Merc refurbs (which they did not need to go to the expense of doing) have something to do with the fare increases. I'm probably going to be wrong, but they will have increased the amount of money spent by sending them to Blackburn - they are going to want to get that money back so they can reinvest it in improving the service for the customers of other routes. The main way that they can do this is by raising fares.