(27 May 2022, 10:43 pm)DeltaMan wrote To be fair, SNE also "pulled a GNE" for he umpteenth time with the 32 and 32A and others, people just dont see it. So I am not sure they are any better. They are just lucky they operate in areas with high levels of social deprivation and a relatively compact "bus friendly" road network.
Yes, indeed - the 18 and 35 in Newcastle too, and had proposed to do the same in other communities such as the 8 and 18/19 in Sunderland, 30 in South Tyneside, and so on… though the latter changes didn’t come into effect in reality but have presumably been postponed to take place at some point later this year when Government support dries up.
The Stagecoach network is completely different to that of the network Go North East operates, and, as reluctant as I am to do it publicly, it goes back to a point that Andreos1 has made in the past that I do agree with, in that the network has to do something meaningful for customers for everything else to work. Perhaps Stagecoach’s cross-city services which provide not just a link to cities but also their hospitals, schools and nearby towns and suburbs are what more customers want and need.
That said, even Stagecoach has some complete dross which if they are in financial difficulty (albeit to a lesser extent than other operators in the region) then it is understandable why they have looked to withdraw some of these services - and well done to Nexus for maintaining service provision in the areas which would have been impacted by this decision.
Stagecoach understandably receives less criticism because their cuts haven’t been anywhere near as large or as frequent - and perhaps it has something to do with the fact they’ve approached their customer communications differently. I suspect following the changes Go North East and Stagecoach made in March, local authorities insisted on a different and more customer-driven consultation approach this time around, and it will be interesting to see how the rest of the year pans out in relation to further cuts and what communications are made.
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