(20 Apr 2022, 4:20 pm)Andreos1 wrote Has eezypeazy hacked your account? Splitting more hairs than he/she ever did here!
Gonna be chatting about battleship grey Solo's and magic money trees next

Seriously though. I think they're going to take advantage of the gaps which are there (exploited or plugged). Build a foundation based on funded stuff and if numbers are there to exploit, I think they will snap them up.
It goes without saying that funding takes away (or at least reduces) the commercial risk - so if they can have that safety net, I'm sure they will use it.

I'm not trying to split hairs, I just think it's a little hyperbolic to suggest Stagecoach are exploiting gaps in the market when, in reality, they're being paid to supply services under tender. We don't talk about how GCT (or GNE/ANE [insert operator here] for that matter) are exploiting gaps when offering tendered services even though, strictly speaking, they have done the same thing in the past (to give a GNE example, the 239 Sedgefield-Easington service; or the 59 Wheatley Hill-Arnsion Centre) even when venturing outside of their usual territory.

I hope Stagecoach do take advantage of whatever there is to gain on North Tyneside, however, as we've seen with cancellations of services to/from Cobalt, I suspect they'll run a mile rather than take on any commercial risk in an area where their presence is, at most, marginal.