(19 Feb 2018, 7:13 pm)L469 YVK wrote Experienced this the most when complaining about the withdrawal of the late evening (after 11.30pm)  X10 and 308 runs to Blyth.

When I complained about the X10 and suggested that they ran it as a 43E (serving full 43 route to Cramlington and then the X10 route from there to Blyth),  I was met with the following bull***t:

"Our data shows that most people using the 23:40 X10 either travelled on the 43 at 23:05 or the X11 at 23:10"

Now, why the hell (unless people wanted stops that the X10/X11 didn't call at) would somebody use the 43 all the way from Newcastle to Cramlington when they could wait another 5 minutes for the 'express'? 

And when it came to expressing my disgust at withdrawing the 23:40 308 (which would've still been viable to run on a Friday & Saturday), I was simply met with the response of most people only using it between Newcastle and Billy Mill rather than them admitting the true reason (to close Blyth Depot earlier). 

Ahem, what about people with day, weekly and monthly tickets (both Arriva and Nexus) as well as any concessionary fares? The people (particularly the former) who probably pay to sit in endless traffic with packed buses running late. And yes they seem to be correcting that come the 18th March but they're probably only adding the extra bus and running time to keep the Traffic Commissioner of their backs and avoid fines for non compliance.

The days of Arriva running late buses for a dozen or so punters are long gone. For years they ran a lot of local mini bus services through housing estates whilst the big buses who passed by these estates on the main road ran empty. It took them a long time to catch on (about the time DB took them over) but they realised why run an extra bus and driver just to save lazy people a minute or two walk to catch the empty big buses running past the estates....