(12 Aug 2022, 11:19 pm)Drifter60 wrote Precisely this. Said it for a long time, the lack of any sort of cross operator ticket in County Durham is a real public transport barrier, routes maybe another key factor but ticketing is up there, 100%. And it’s hard to hear anyone in Tyne and Wear complain when they have network one - with £4 day tickets and £20 weekly tickets is it? When the alternative across the border into Durham is you’re potentially having to buy two day tickets at probably a decent bit over a tenner all told, if you need to get from an Arriva area to a GNE area. Or get the NE Explorer which is what £11 these days but covers Berwick to Guisbrough when all you needed to do was Shadforth to Seaham. Just ludicrous.

The lack of ticketing options really is what stops me using the bus more. 

I regularly travel back up to Newcastle so I have to have a GNE ticket for that.
I have family that lives in Crook, so I need an Arriva ticket for that.

Perfect, on the face of it the Network One All Zone Plus Extra Super Duper ticket would be an excellent choice for me, but it's only available as a weekly ticket! Plus, for the journeys I do, it's still cheaper for me to buy a separate weekly ticket for both GNE and Arriva (although I appreciate some people aren't able to take advantage of the 5-25 ticket)

Network One All Zone Plus - £34

GNE 5-25 Week - £18
Arriva Bishop Auckland Zone Week - £15
Total - £33

The other issue I have with the ticket is that it doesn't actually cover the whole of County Durham! It only covers the Durham County Council area of County Durham, which excludes Darlington, the largest town in the county! (Unless you look at the map on Arriva's website, then it seems to cover Darlington?)

So, for my typical Tuesday where I go to my mother's house for the day to either work on the house or one of the cars, then go up to Newcastle to meet with friends, I'd be looking at spending £9.40 on bus tickets.
But, even then I'd have the inconvenience of having backtrack on my self bussing it back to Bishop and catching the X21 from there rather than just taking the X46 to Durham because to do that I'd have to spend another £2.20 for a Durham District ticket instead of a Bishop Auckland Zone (Arriva's ticket zones are worth their own rant!)