(14 Feb 2020, 11:15 am)Storx wrote I weirdly have to totally disagree with this from north of the Tyne in N Tyneside and SE Northumberland point of view. GNE is by far by a country mile the worst. Summary of it from around here's point view.

Arriva
306 extension to Whitley Bay
*Pointless, could just go to Tynemouth to improve reliability. Marden could be served by extended 51A Mon-Sat.

New Blyth peak expresses
* Should these not be running all day? X8 needs split in Cramlington on that note, takes far too long to Newcastle for people in Bebside & Cowpen. 

Experimented with later buses on X10/X11 (didn't work)
* Could've easily created a 43E out of this to make it viable but just came up with excuses when I contacted them. They later did the same with the 308

Not many new buses recently bar the few for X21/X22 but nothing downgraded.
* No new buses since, Blyth fleet needs replacing soon and Jesmond is a joke!

No big cuts to services in past 5 

Stagecoach (Not really their area).
Extended 22 and 1 to Cobalt
* Fair enough
Seaside bus in North Tyneside
* Fair enough

GoNorthEast
Extended the 1 to Metro Centre via the world but cut Kibblesworth in the process.
* Only ran during evenings

Extended 11 to Newcastle (didn't work).
* Was an oddball as was the 57, better just having a streamlined 1 & 1A service.

Cut 309/10 to every 20 minutes.
* Makes sense particularly outside of peaks and won't be long before Arriva follow suit. GNE still run the 309 slightly more frequently to and from Cobalt during peaks as well as X39.

Cut 9 from Sunderland to South Shields (5) which then got cut altogether.
* Fair enough

Scrapped across town links with 58.
* Most prefer Haymarket and as mentioned before, new 311 coordinates better with 309 & 310 as well as extra capacity.

No new buses but Cobalt's refurbished.
* And to a high standard compared to the makeshift replacements the 308 got in exchange for the Hybrids.

Indigo / Little Coasters downgraded buses.
40/41/42/42A is about to get butchered - again.
11/19/40/41/42/42A only day time services since they've lost the night subsidies.
* Fair enough

309 last bus getting earlier and earlier.
* 2145 extended to Blyth in 2016
* Mon-Sat 1925 extended to Blyth in 2016
* New 1905 journey on Saturdays formed in 2016
* 2245 now runs on Sundays too
* Improved 20 min service between Newcastle and Battle Hill during evenings
* 2255 Blyth to New York re-introduced Mon-Sat and 2155 Sun & BH
* Extra evening running time & layover to improve reliability

No mentionable improvements to services at all. Literally I can't think of one enhancement to timetables.

I guess it just depends on where you live on what people think. The Northumbria Arriva has always been more proactive that the Durham / Tees division though. I could imagine people in certain parts of Sunderland not having glowing reviews or either GNE or Stagecoach depending on the area.