(16 Sep 2020, 5:24 pm)Storx wrote I disagree with this personally I don't think any bus company in their own company shouldn't have duplicate numbers with an express and a non express service. It's not a bad assumption to assume an X1 is an express version of their 1, or the X10 is an express version of their 10 (ignoring common sense). Between other operators then fair enough but there's 99 numbers GNE could use (if you want to keep it 2 digits) without having an X1 and 1 and X10 and 10 running from the same bus stations (or nearby).
In terms of the 10, I quite like the way Trent Barton have done it for their 'nines' routes where it's 9.1 and 9.3 (used to be a 9.2 which got scrapped - don't have the gap). Could work well for the 10's 10.1 to Hexham, 10.2 for the 10A and 10.3 for the 10B
In terms of GNE, Arriva and Stagecoach is there any services which have the same number running from the same bus stop / station in Tyne and Wear, can't think of any tbh.
In 38 years of being alive, at no point do I ever remember assuming 2 different services went to the same places because of similarities in route number. When I was a child, United service 10 from Middlesbrough went to Hartlepool, United and Northern joint service X10 went to Newcastle (as it still does), so it's nothing new.
Route numbers exist for customers to differentiate between what bus goes where. Stood in Sunderland and looking for a bus to Souter Lighthouse, having buses with only a destination of "South Shields" on it's and no number isn't too helpful as they all take seperate routes. As they're numbered either 20, E1, E2, or E6, then it's easy to identify that I'd need to be on the E1 to South Shields. Those four routes could respectively be numbered 974, 74G, EGY74 and D74J and it would would make no difference at all, because I'd still know which bus I'd need to catch to Souter Lighthouse, regardless of whatever route identifier it's displaying.
The use of dots and dashes is novel, but could potentially cause the confusion your trying to avoid between a 1.1 and 11. The use of alphanumeric indentifiers for route variations are more legible on a destination board.
And suggesting that it's "fair enough" for seperate operators to number their routes similarly is bizarre. From my experience of talking to people, the average person on the street can not identify one operator from another. This is especially relevant when dealing with Go-Ahead, who constantly swap and change routes, route numbers, bus colours (both inside and out) and bus types. While you and I can tell the difference, the only non bus spotters that'll care about the two service 8's in Sunderland are those that use them and they will already know whether they need to be on a 8 to Stanley or an 8 to South Hylton. On average, the colour of the bus or who's name is plastered across the side of it won't matter in the slightest and probably won't even get noticed.