(05 Feb 2021, 12:23 pm)Rob44 wrote As a user of the 44 in my younger days abit the Newcastle to hazlerigg section i was under the impression this service was pulled due to low numbers of passengers from whitly to Newcastle and the problems to service had keeping to time. I did shopping for my parents in Newcastle every Saturday morning and each time i get the 1000am or 1030am bus back to the rigg hardly anyone would alight from this service. and that was me getting on a either Newgate street or blacket street which were the fisrt stop in Newcastle to unload.
Those two reasons are the reasons for almost all service reductions, though, it doesn't matter who the operator is. That goes back to the point that I keep alluding to - in that this isn't an issue unique to Go North East, and not even that it's limited to the operators in our region - it's an industry-wide issue (perhaps a separate thread would be more appropriate). If a service was very profitable and had no issues with timekeeping, service reductions wouldn't be made.
The industry needs to do something to combat this issue, but quite how they do this, is down to each individual operator. Services with timekeeping issues is likely to caused by congestion - but why is there congestion? Increased car use. Why is there increased car use? Because, presumably, public transport is not desirable to those people in cars. Why is it undesirable? Because buses run too infrequently, aren't fast enough, are too expensive, or don't run late enough..? Why don't buses run more frequently, have faster journey times, and so on..?
Bringing this back to our region, some operators are choosing to do nothing (or, the bare minimum). A steady stream of fare increases and service reductions, with little in the way of improvements being made to the core network, is a vicious circle of buses becoming less desirable, and passengers seeking an alternative means of travel (whatever that may be - including to a rival bus company).
Other operators are taking a different approach - I don't think anyone can deny (not even Andreos1!) that Go North East is focusing on improving the customer experience on-board their buses through significant investment (into new and refurbished vehicles), and having a big focus on marketing, in order to try and drive some growth. It isn't just a case of the company titivating and seeking mutual back-slapping from industry professionals. They have also avoided a 'traditional' fares increase for some time now, instead reducing fares or introducing better-value tickets (flexible weekly tickets, 24-hour tickets, or group tickets). If this results in growth - and it is a big if - then the extra revenue could be pumped back into the network, in order to improve the basic fundamentals, which Andreos1 suggests would drive better growth.
The unfortunate thing in all of this, is that COVID-19 has had an unprecedented (everyone's favourite buzzword!) impact on the public transport sector. This will, undoubtedly, result in a long-term patronage reduction (a fair assumption would be 20% - people who are now working from home, have lost confidence in the cleanliness of public transport, or even those who have sadly lost their life). All these improvements being made right now by Go North East will hopefully reduce that long-term patronage reduction, but the proof will be in the pudding. I'd definitely expect them to be in a better standing than Arriva, who have invested very little in recent years, and done next to nothing by way of fundamental improvements.
(05 Feb 2021, 1:25 pm)streetdeckfan wrote The coaches weren't committed to before the pandemic. In fact, if my memory serves me right, the plan wasn't to upgrade the X9/X10 for another year or two (and even then, they'd basically ruled out buying coaches and were looking at the more heavy duty service buses), until the opportunity came up to swap the StreetDecks they already had on order for Oxford's coaches.
Correct. The pandemic, and reduced capital expenditure available from the Group, meant that operators were tasked with reviewing their fleets meaning it could be aligned to a group-wide strategy. This resulted in the swap of some of Go North East's new StreetDecks to Oxford (which they required for contractual commitments), for their otherwise-surplus interdeck coaches, which meant that Go North East's planned investment for the X9/X10 could be cancelled.