(11 Jul 2020, 10:14 pm)streetdeckfan wrote That was exactly the point, for people from Newcastle, the X12 is a service to Durham that happens to carry on to Middlesbrough, and for people from Middlesbrough, it's a service to Durham that happens to continue on to Newcastle.
The issue is if someone just turns up at Eldon Square looking for a bus to Middlesbrough (however unlikely that is), they're going to look at the board and see the X12 as the only option. The great thing about Nexus timetables is they actually tell you roughly how long the journey is, so a passenger may just look at the timetable and see it takes a bloody age to get there and think "Sod it, I'm getting the train" rather than looking for the X9/X10
Absolutely this. It's unlikely (though I perhaps should have made that clearer), but infrequent bus users often simply look for where they want to go, see whichever bus is first then get on that.
Over the years, the amount of times I've seen people catch an X21/2 to Ashington over the X20 because the X21/2 leaves 2-3 minutes earlier is too many to count. I've steered them the right way if I've noticed in time (if I've overhead their conversation!), but all too often I'd get off the X20 then 10 minutes later they'll get off the X21/2. (Note that this was just as frequent in pre-Sapphire days where there generally was no internal spec difference either)