Reading all that's been posted I can't help, among other things, and opinions, harking back to my younger years, when, from what I remember, we enjoyed a bus service par excellent. A network of depots (United) covered my area, an area stretching from Scarborough in the south up to say Stockton then out across to Richmond. Each depot had it's dedicated fleet of vehicles to cope with the requirements of its services led by a manager and maintainance team with of course the drivers, and yes I remember conductors, who operated a damm fine service which invariably ran to time; there was always "spare" drivers and the luxury of spare vehicles, not that they were needed very often. I could go on.
One particular part of this operation/network stands out in my mind, it was close to home. A "spiders web" of buses operated services across from Loftus (depot) to Redcar (depot), up to Lingdale and down to Saltburn. We had East Cleveland covered with a half hourly service that ran through from 6am to 11pm, connected, in the proper definition of the word and with just a little imagination, provided further opportunities to travel to Middlesbrough and Whitby, it worked and was effective
Then of course we had the end of United didn't we? The slow (and painful) transition through Tees and District and to Arriva with its cost cutting measures headed under the banner of making things more efficient. I fail to see just how when what we had worked so well. I'll leave it there for now, if anyone would care to share, add to what I say then please feel free. Thank you.