(11 Oct 2021, 8:09 am)NewcastleOne wrote I can’t account for the 310 or 311 don’t go on them frequently, however what I can say for the 309 I can get busy up to Cobalt especially in the peak times and fills up (not completely) towards Newcastle. Those are my experiences. On Weekends and off peak times it will of course be less busy. I think it’s really not about your experiences on whether a service is busy or not but what the data is across multiple vehicles on the service at the same time. You can see a vehicle isn’t busy but what are variable factors to do. What time have you seen them and where and what date. It’s a hard thing to determine which GNE has come to the conclusion that this is a service they believe they can upgrade and make a profit.
I could imagine the reason they picked those services is it's a joint bid between Northumberland, Durham and GNE. It wouldn't make much sense upgrading the 56 for example which doesn't touch either of the areas.
It's all about pollution spots aswell which the Coast Road is really bad and I believe Durham is trying to do something to try and make their area net zero. The P&R are part of it aswell and the 21, X5 and X15 are the main services to serve Durham which are deckers which are ran by GNE.