(14 Feb 2020, 2:34 am)scanialover wrote So just what is the point of timetables? Let's just let the drivers go and pick their bus up and do what they like. The attitude demonstrated here does typify in some way just how people accept the standard of bus travel.

Exactly. And we shouldn't just accept it. The fact that bus companies can just cancel services with no penalty just annoys me!

(14 Feb 2020, 7:00 am)tvd wrote Keeping to time all the time and having no bunching of frequent services like the 63 is pretty impossible, to be fair to Arriva.
There's the level crossing in Redcar that can hold them up both way, as well as all the traffic lights and usual congestion on the roads. And we've all seen buses running late only to get to a stop only then for the boarding passengers to ask questions, look all over for their money or pass, and basically delay things even more.
So the first bus gets delayed and end up picking up passengers who intended boarding the next bus - which in turn is quieter and can keep to its time easier, ending up behind the earlier one.

Then maybe their schedulers should work extra time in to the timetable! If the delays have been going on this long, then surely they know roughly how late services always are!

(14 Feb 2020, 7:10 am)scanialover wrote The inevitability of bus travel these days and despite my grumble about service 63 being from the area I know just how difficult it is to maintain time. I'd thought of things like turning late running services short and some sort of radio control management but this is Middlesbrough not London and it's just best, a fact, we stick with what we've got.

GNE has radio to all their buses and regularly turns them round to maintain time. The thing is, this costs money and Arriva probably can't afford it!

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