(29 Apr 2020, 7:12 pm)Washingtonian wrote I think the old Newcastle/Washington - Sunderland services started to suffer when the metro extension to Sunderland opened in 2002. They were very popular before then. Even still the X2 always seemed to have decent loadings, even until it was axed. If I remember rightly the Washington to Sunderlandpart of the X2 became was merged with the 773/4 and became the Silver Arrows 2A/C and was initially given a 10 minute frequency. I think there must be some demand for a Newcastle to Sunderland express service as Stagecoach's X24 has been going for a while now, so I think Go North East should never have scrapped the X2.
I could imagine the biggest problem with a bus going from Sunderland to Newcastle is the opposite flow. There will be next to no demand for anyone wanting to use a GNE direct from Newcastle to Sunderland so you might have 20 people using the bus going in one direction if it's empty the other way then it's a bit pointless. GNE don't really have a network North or West of Newcastle and the places they do serve, the metro is there which is quicker.
Stagecoach on the otherhand have a network in the whole of the West End / parts of North Tyneside who may already have Tyne and Wear ticket so could use the bus for no extra cost otherwise it's only £3.50 or so more a week for Sunderland aswell who maybe tempted to use it.
It's a similar story with Metro Centre buses, it's all good having 20 people heading there, but that bus will travel back with no-one on for a few hours with a similar pattern the opposite way later in the day.