(19 Jan 2022, 2:26 pm)Storx wrote Apologies misworded that, that just meant in general at anytime rather than fully subsidised. I can't imagine an operator would openly let another operator run their services (badly) at night if they were top performers as seen with Arriva who suddenly decided everything could be ran by them in Durham in the end. I believe most the Arriva network is commercial now and I can't imagine the 53 and the likes making a fortune (if anything) at night - I could be wrong there but they don't seem to go up for tender.

Some services receive deminimis funding, so there isn't a formal tender and the operator provides the local authority with a price without going through the formal procurement process. I think you'll find a lot of Arriva and Stagecoach services receive deminimis funding - from memory there has been an FOI request in the past to Nexus confirming details of all contracts including those with deminimis funding.

Evening journeys on service 53 are secured, and indeed Nexus had (until they withdrew all tenders for March 2022) actually put out a tender to operate the 53 on an evening this year. Hourly departures at 20:24, 21:24 and 22:24 from North Shields, and 20:25, 21:25 and 22:25 from Cramlington (with the final departures currently at 23:11 from Cramlington and 23:24 from North Shields cancelled).