(26 Jan 2022, 9:50 pm)stagecoachbusdepot wrote I dunno I don't really see SNE (and dont know enough about Arriva ops to comment) being much better on that front to be honest.  SNE 'cross city' routes in Sunderland and Newcastle only work if you happen to want to go from e.g. Silksworth to Doxy or or the Sunderland North Estates.  You still need to change to get to plenty of places as they binned off all of their more 'community serving' linking up routes over the last couple of decades (likes of 5, 6, 7, 14, 17, 18/19, 21 etc in Sunderland and 2, 3, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 etc in Newcastle).  Hub and spoke definite demotivator for public transport usage overall; convenient as it may be for the operators.

Yeah fair points, must admit I don't know SNE in general too well and to be fair it's probably not the best to compare against anyway as they're very different networks one being an urban network and the other being intercity pretty much but at least the hub Stagecoach uses is somewhere where people actually want to be. In comparison to the likes of Stanley, Consett, Wallsend, Peterlee etc because let's be honest who really wants to go to them.

But between GNE and Arriva the networks are very different. The 22/23/24 are a good example down in Peterlee with them running around the estates but then extending off to either Sunderland / Durham / Hartlepool depending where you are or all three if your in the right area. Compare that to GNE's approach where you have to get a little bus to Peterlee then you can't change to anything because they butchered all the long distance routes so they stick out like a sore thumb.

The urban areas of GNE imo are alright in general like Gateshead bar the changing of certain routes numerous times (96 as someone mentioned).