(29 Sep 2021, 4:49 pm)Storx wrote Was bored and seen someone mention Team Valley before so thought how you could improve links to it all day.
1 - Current route between Whitley Bay and Gateshead (Hourly)
1A - Current route between Whitley Bay and Gateshead extended to Kibblesworth via 29 route (Hourly)
1B - Current route between Whitley Bay and Gateshead extended to Ouston via 28 route but then loops round Urpeth Grange instead of continuing to Chester Le Street (replaced partially by X32) (Hourly)
28 - Withdrawn (replaced partially by 1B)
28A - Withdrawn (replaced partially by 1A / X32)
29 - Withdrawn (replaced by 1A)
X30 - Reduced to hourly
X31 - No change but works every 30 minutes with X30.
X32 - Stanley -> Beamish -> Pelton -> Perkinsville -> Ouston -> Lamesley -> Team Valley -> NON STOP -> Gateshead -> Newcastle (Every 30 minutes)
34 - Revert to old route missing Pelton.
91 - Withdrawn (replaced by X32)
93/94 - Withdraw peak extras (replaced by X32).
It has a few benefits such as:
Service between Newcastle / Stanley and Team Valley all day (X32)
New bus from Urpeth Grange to Birtley / Newcastle (1B)
Hourly bus link from Byker and beyond to the QE Hospital (1B)
Restores link between Stanley and Gateshead (X32)
Passengers on 29 route now have a service to Newcastle (1A)
Removal of the clearly unprofitable (28/28A South of Ouston).
Quicker service on the 93/94 to take pressure off them between Gateshead and Team Valley.
Removal of peak extras on 93/94.
Losses to be balanced:
Kibblesworth to Birtley with the 28A
Pelton to Chester Le Street to Birtley and the QE on the 28
Reduction of X30/X31 but other benefits brought with the X32.
I'm firmly of the belief that if operators really want to push ahead with a 'hub and spoke' model, they need to consider alternatives to the town and city centres they force on passengers now and start to consider alternatives.
Not only do people not work in the town and city centres, like they did in the past. We've seen the growth in out of town business and retail parks.
Quite often those who work or visit there, can't get public transport to those places. Or if they can, it's usually very limited.
If operators are going to think outside the box and do something different - not too different (we know how much they struggle with change...), why don't they consider creating new hubs and as a result, new spokes.
Could the 'bus station' at Team Valley be improved, so that becomes a hub? They could operate routes to/from there, from places people actually live. Not somewhere that's a current hub, is well out of the general direction and would add 30/45mins on to an average morning commute.
Dalton Park is seeing an upturn in people using the bus and could easily increase its potential market share and footfall, by making that investment and encouraging people to use the bus to get there from a wide variety of locations (not just Seaham or Sunderland which has traditionally always been the case for bus users).
The Arnison Centre has similar potential imo. If not more than Dalton Park, based on the proximity of a number of key employment sites.
That's assuming operators look beyond the traditional bus to/from the city centre and Chester le Street corridor...
I'd argue these retail and business parks are the new town and city centres and I think it is time operator's looked at them in that way.
The GNE express network clearly has a focus in/out of Newcastle. A quick look at the map would indicate it is the hub of the network. I'm not sure needs to be the main/focus/central hub of a series of duplicated routes and services. Particularly when so many of the routes/services skirt the edges of other potential hubs.