(10 Mar 2021, 1:23 am)Wellsey18 wrote I think Dans touched on this a lot now, the demand just isn’t there in this area anymore. I’ve lived in north Tyneside all my 25 years on this planet, gone are the days of Percy Main being a hub of a million and one bus routes, they’ve condensed to try and make what they have profitable. Can you blame them?

I never see the 41 busy, I never really see any 42’s very busy and same goes for the 11. Unfortunately the competition have edged it in these areas.

I could understand you constantly saying it needs to change if there was footfall to back this up, but you have to accept from a none enthusiast point of view of the area. I do feel as though I grew up at a good time for this area, the excitement of never knowing what bus was going to show up on a 305 or even 340 used to be great, but that’s not how bus companies are ran anymore, it’s more uniformed, and on the whole as a customer perspective better.

Gone are the days of B10BLES flying round on the 17, or SPD’s cluttering up wallsend!


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I think you make some interesting points here. Whilst there's not many areas that have two bus operators competing on a corridor along with the metro, I do think there is demand. 
The number of people living and working in the area indicates to me that there is a lot of potential to grow the network, rather than reduce it.

Then you have all of the business parks opening and developing, the new houses being built alongside the A19 and the likes of the Silverlink.
Yet (and I feel like a broken record), we have a network which is basically as it was - all be it condensed and reduced.
Competition has seen investment in vehicles, but not the network. 

Then the SNE rock up, see that one of the many gaps in the market is open to exploit and expands the 22 from Wallsend.
Making a resource investment in the network, which could be paying off.
On the other hand, there's ANE and GNE reducing their resource investment in the network... 
Maybe, just maybe, we would see a different outcome if the opposite happened.