(06 Jan 2020, 12:44 am)OrangeArrow49 wrote The bus will never compete with the car, a taxi or app-based service like Uber. Buses have their place, but are not true competition, and they never will be.
Customer service is poor on Stagecoach and outstanding on GNE in my experience, broadly speaking. However there has been good customer service on Stagecoach and poor customer service on GNE. GNE customer service is good on social media and live chat as far I know. Arriva has a reputation for poor customer service, but I never use Arriva so won't comment too much. Gateshead Central Taxis has terrible customer service and Stanley Travel has outstanding customer service. Customer service is clearly inconsistent within the companies, and the industry. There is work to be done for certain. Buses will never be perfect, and will never be the best way to commute.
Personally for me the biggest problem as Omnicity has mentioned is the lack of multi-operator tickets especially across boundaries. For me I don't and probably most people they don't care whether it's GNE, Arriva or Stagecoach unless they have to use more than one and then fork up multiple tickets or if buy an explorer at £10.90 that used to be £9.20 until recently.
I know this is a bus forum but I always think rail is one of the areas that's majorly underutilised up here for example we have approx 10 buses an hour between Cramlington and Newcastle yet no-one uses the railway since it's in the middle of nowhere (I know they want to change this) and it's way to expensive if you have to use another service. It's similar with most the ECML stations or ever worse at Pegswood and Widdrington they have a token service. Why not have buses running north from these to Amble etc then get them into Newcastle in half the time and much quicker than actually driving but we're more bothered about having 4 express trains an hour running to Edinburgh carrying fresh air most the day.
It's the same along the Hexham line and the Metro Centre which are both massively underused. I bet most people don't even realise there's a train from Newcastle to the Metro Centre why not let metro tickets use it where it's an easy'ish change at Central rather than having at least 8 buses an hour from Gateshead and Blackett Street doing express journeys. That's how you realistically get buses off the road.