(22 Feb 2021, 10:56 am)Acky81 wrote Why do Newcastle Sunderland and South Shields not have magic bus. I know Newcastle previously did

I don't really see the point of magic bus tbh, especially considering that Stagecoach want to have a "corporate identity" these days, it's not much point. A bus with a few stars on it doesn't make much difference if it's just the same route with the same buses as. It's not like Stagecoach Gold, where there would be new buses and passengers would think of it as a premium service with extra "luxuries". I don't think Magic Bus is known very well these days, except from Manchester. Back in the 90s/ early 2000s, I'm pretty sure Magic bus had a bad name for itself. You'd often see broken down Magicbuses around the city. 

If Stagecoach NE were to introduce magic bus for a different reason, the most obvious place would be Newcastle, probably on the 22 as a rival against the Coaster 1 services, but there aren't really that many corridors where there is strong competition in Newcastle anymore. Stagecoach pretty much rule the South Shields anyway, so there's no point. Similarly, in Sunderland each area is either mainly Stagecoach or GNE. Although, the Chester Road corridor (16) or the Durham Road routes (3,4) would be the most likely if any of this was to happen.