(03 Jun 2022, 6:10 pm)Adrian wrote Thought I'd spend some time today experiencing the bank holiday services myself. I've already got a GNE All Zones ticket, so I limited what I did to GNE's services, before it's suggested that I'm picking on one particular operator! 

Journey log below:


I tried to vary as much as possible, using services or sections I generally don't use, but where I could also see volumes on other services. 

I didn't have any issues at all when I was out. Everything was just about on time, with the biggest delay being a couple of minutes. Aside from the Concord to Washington Galleries section on that 11.16 service 50 I used (which appeared to be running fully decker today), loadings were absolutely fine. There wasn't an instance where anyone had to stand and in fact, most people had a pair of seats to themselves. 

The busiest services I spotted were the X1, 20 and the 53/54. I'd say the X1 in particular, probably needs to have it's own timetable for bank holidays, as will some other services if these proposed changes go through... I can't imagine a two-hourly X10 being very pleasant to travel on, on a bank holiday! The 20, I was surprised wasn't being ran with deckers, given the SOL gig tonight and it being a nice day for the coast. That being said, Stagecoach were similarly running a largely single deck operation on the E1/E2/E6.

Bus stations I visited were generally quite busy. It felt more like Saturday volumes than a Sunday, but that's probably the result of a decent loading going out on one bus, rather than being drip fed across the hour on several. I also noticed a lack of timetable information out at Gateshead and the Metrocentre. Maybe the racks have been given the long weekend off?

In summary, from what I've seen today, the current Sunday service can cope with a bank holiday loads on the most part. I think there's certain services that need a special bank holiday timetable, others ran with deckers and earlier services for retail workers. Recognising that a lot of retail generally runs normal Saturday hours on a bank holiday.

The other thing to point out is that people on here (and I've been guilty of it myself) are often quick to condemn operators to hell based on twitter posts, from the comfort of their armchairs, but the service provided really isn't bad at all.