(23 May 2021, 12:12 am)peter wrote The thing is though there are certain routes that ANE and GNE are never going to win a competition on because they are too much of a stronghold. There's no likelihood of Arriva taking enough money from the 21 because they're not dominant enough in that area. 9 times out of 10 when GNE have encroached in Arriva land they have lost and when Arriva have encroached in GNE land they've lost. Because it's those less frequent local routes that help to win the battle. ANE are never gonna win in Chester-le-Street because they have no other services there. GNE are never going to win in Darlington because they have no other services there. But if Arriva were to operate extra services from Durham to Chester-le-Street you can bet your bottom dollar GNE would re-increase the 21 to every 15 minutes between Durham and Chester-le-Street till Arriva's service eventually fails - because they don't have that end network!
Durham is an interesting case because while Arriva is dominant, GNE does have enough of a presence for it to work. That extension into Brandon, might have seen a bit of healthy competition, because both are frequent/prominent enough to survive. Would it result in either the 21 or 49/49a being withdrawn or reduced and other local services being withdrawn, it's highly unlikely because these are popular enough and the demand to support it is there. Two extra buses to Brandon isn't going to make the 49/49a unprofitable. Would the GNE extension to Brandon survive, perhaps if the Newcastle demand is there (as with the X21). GNE extending the X21 through to West Auckland hasn't caused Arriva's 6 to get withdrawn or any other Bishop Auckland or Durham services as a result. In this case both services are still running because the demand to support those two extra X21's alongside the 6 must be there! In fact in this example ANE haven't really bothered to respond, they've just decided to co-exist. Do I think the X21 extension will last forever, probably not, because Arriva are fundamentally dominant in the area, but it provides an alternative to passengers and ultimately more services. I do agree that East Durham is a dicey one because despite GNE's local network, they've not found success with the connective services. Having said that, despite GNE losing out as far as the X6/7 and 55 are concerned, has it resulted in the Peterlee local services being withdrawn, no it hasn't - in fact they're getting a rebrand which suggests the success of other remaining services (the X9/10) is enough to support them.
While I can see your point about the Coast Road, the issue there I feel is that both operators are in a stalemate, with too many buses going along there to support it - the point with those is that you have two high frequency services competing and not enough passengers. A low frequency service wriggling in on a high frequency service is a different kettle of fish. Ultimately, a twice hourly extension of the 21 to Brandon would hardly bring down Chester-le-Street depot, otherwise GNE would have never even contemplated it.
Overall, I don't see Arriva being that willing to put up a fight these days. As I said they haven't put newer buses or increased frequency on the 6 in response to the X21, they didn't bring back their own X21 in response to the X6/7, they haven't attempted a quicker service to Sunderland - probably because the demand just isn't there on top of their existing and the GNE services. I think they seem to be in an era of keeping things just as they are (excluding COVID frequency reductions).
As much as I don't disagree with what your saying I just don't think going into principal areas is a good way of operating (mind the 6 is down to every 15 minutes used to be every 12 minutes). Personally if GNE expanded in Durham area I'd rather they focused on servicing places that don't have a bus service. I don't know Durham too well but there's plenty of new housing estates popping up all over the place and at half of them most operators are just sleep walking leaving large places without a bus service at all. Birtley is really bad for that in the top end where the massive new estates are being built.
That said though in Durham, I still find it absolutely ridiculous that there's been a brand new Amazon distribution centre at Tursdale with employs workers in their thousands on generally low wages doesn't have a single bus operating to it. That's the sort of places that operators should be focused on and is the place if I was going to extend some services that I'd be looking at.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Durham/5...49!1m0!3e0 - Stuff like that is areas that GNE should be looking at if they want to expand and giving people services which don't exist rather than competing on stuff that does exist. Stagecoach's 1 and 22 extensions we're good extensions imo as they gave direct links for many people to Cobalt which didn't have them beforehand even known it affected GNE's services badly but at least there's a purpose to it.
The 21 extension to Brandon is just mindless competition unless there's some contract for Durham Uni and doesn't bring anything new for passengers. The X21 extension wasn't really an extension and more a replacement for the short Bishop service which left the other side of the route without a bus (could be argued it was negative).