(16 Jul 2017, 10:00 am)Dan wrote The flip side of the coin is that the X9/X10 services don't have enough layover time at either end to recover after incurring delays, and if a bus arrives in 10 minutes late, it's guaranteed to depart late by the time everyone alights and then boards again, meaning that a lot of journeys take more time than scheduled to, already.
This change would presumably only add around 5 minutes onto the timetable in either direction (i.e. roughly the same amount of time as what a lot of customers are being inconvenienced by already, due to lack of appropriate layover time), so in reality, this change would just provide a more realistic and achievable timetable, whilst also opening up new, direct links for passengers, which would hopefully grow the services in order to pay for the extra bus being added to the PVR.
I think going into Dalton Park is an interesting move for GNE and the extra bus added to the PVR will, as Dan says, allow for a good amount of layover time at each end of the route. This will be the bigger bonus for the X9/X10 in terms of reducing delays as buses that come in late will depart on time 90% of the time.
Expecting Dalton Park to pay for the extra bus added to the PVR may be expecting a bit much though. I wonder whether going half hourly via the Sunday route would have attracted a higher amount of growth? Admittedly this would have increased the journey time further, however I think this would be more than offset by the half hourly frequency attracting people.