(11 Jun 2022, 10:17 pm)Storx wrote I disagree with this. There's a leisure market Sat and Sunday and the odd punter in the evening other than that there's nothing.
The problem with buses is they're dead between 9:30am - 3pm'ish, Monday to Friday and then same again 6pm'ish onwards - the majority of their operating time. People don't do leisure during those times so your not fixing the problems and having a Saturday / Sunday only timetable would be confusing as hell.
Regardless what people say there's still a peak time because there's still massive traffic jams every day at the usual spots and these aren't people going to a bingo hall, cinema or shopping at Team Valley. In fact in some places it's worse than it's ever been especially Moor Farm and the Tyne Tunnel. Going down the mugging off a commuter who could buy a annual ticket for roughly £1k a year to chase a leisure user who uses the bus once a week for £7 is down right suicidal.
100% correct. Off peak is mainly shift workers, college students, appointments goers and shoppers during the day. WFHs wouldn't be using the bus between those times as they should be "working". OAPS are simply not returning in the same numbers.
I know we (the royal we) like to think of the North East as this cultural epicentre, but outside of Newcastle & Durham, the night time/leisure economy is truly abysmal. Go to Consett, Jarrow, Ashington, Killingworth, Wallsend, Prudhoe etc after 19:00 and there is literally nothing happening - and those are places with half decent links. I've been to crematoriums with more life. If people don't have a reason to go out, they won't. They can sit in the house and watch Netflix while ordering in an Uber eats! They don't need to travel on public transport to do any of that.