With the 317 they need to get some vehicles that more suitable to the route as those MAN E300's are to big given there large rear overhang. I used the service this afternoon from Royal Quays to Wallsend and got stuck a part of Holy Cross due to badly parked cars, the first one we got through albeit narrowly but the second one a few mins later the driver just about got through to her credit but if she turned any further to the right she would've hit a parked car then also risked hitting others on the opposite side of the road.

I helped the driver by knocking on doors to find out whose car it was and for them to move, first said it was not their car, some 10 mins later they came back out to say it was their sisters car after disturbing a number of their neighbours, safe to say they were not impressed nor was the driver which resulted in the service being 20 minutes late into Wallsend the subsequent journey from Wallsend being cancelled with the driver being instructed to return to the depot.

From what I have seen online traffic around Whitley Bay was quite bad this afternoon and badly parked cars did not help so I would think it was not worth the risk of further late running and the driver exceeding their driving hours.

In terms of passenger usage the bus was almost full when I got on and there was a few fare paying passengers however there was an equal number of concessionary pass holders getting on as well, in terms of the route their is nothing wrong with it, it just needed allocated smaller Euro 6 Buses which will either have to be bought new or sourced from elsewhere otherwise the issues documented above will continue on a daily basis, only other solution would be to have the route serve main roads through the estate but the near stops seem some distance away so you are then risking losing passengers also.