(31 Jul 2020, 8:33 am)Storx wrote Yeah I can't disagree with that tbh. Have to be fair and mention the train aswell as Burnley, Blackpool etc have a decent rail or tram service which they have to compete against aswell sadly something which is pretty much non-existant up here in most areas.

There's definitely a better case going further towards the monopoly side rather than full scale competition though as I can't really think of anywhere with full on competition with a good network - is there anywhere? Suppose it depends on the operator though ie. not First as Stoke residents probably disagree with that.

The London franchising network doesn't really work in reality tbf, would be horrendous up here as Nexus or NECA or whoever ran it would just make a balls of it. Not sure how you could just tell GNE to disappear aswell without large sums of money without a backlash of some sort.

I quite like the arrangement we have up here tbh, the only thing that's missing is a good value multi-operator ticket that works outside of T&W.

With the ticket acceptance between GNE and Arriva at the minute, I've actually found it a lot easier to travel about in Bishop. Before lockdown, I'd get the X21 into Bishop, get a bacon sandwich from Cooplands, then catch the next X21 up north. But now, I've just been catching the Arriva 6 into Bishop then changing to the X21, saving at least half an hour. 
If they were to keep something similar in place I'd be very happy, even if I had to pay a bit more for the ticket.