(21 Aug 2022, 11:56 am)Adrian wrote Business is never going to be booming, given the tiny settlements that it serves South of Haltwhistle. Alston is probably the biggest and even at that, there's only around 1,000 living there. Just because they're tiny settlements, it doesn't mean they're not worth your council tax and should live in isolation.
It's literally two buses a day, and all they're asking for is for some common-sense in the timetable. It's probably safe to assume that Haltwhistle is the direction of travel, given that is where most services are, yet the timetable doesn't provide a return journey for the second Haltwhistle-bound bus a day. Who are we timetabling for? The people that use buses, or the people that run them?
This is the type of service councils should be supporting in my opinion, because those who don't or can't drive, are left with very few other options. The suggestion of taxi tokens is a moot point, because there's very unlikely to be anyone providing taxi services in the local vicinity. They're likely having to come from one of the bigger settlements like Brampton or Haltwhistle.
(21 Aug 2022, 9:13 pm)xpm wrote and that is exactly the problem - half the time it is completely empty, might take an odd one or two from Alston to halty and back, a couple from Halton Lea Gate, and someone from Slaggy, but that's about it. It could be a completely soul destroying duty ten and a half hours of solitude - worse in the winter when the weather came in - running about in bad conditions for no benefit for anyone - that triip back across Alston Moor and Whitfield could be long and hairy.
From what I understand it's a Beechings route - so there's always going to be some sort of service on there with a minimum number of journeys. Prior to the most recent changes most people agreed the direction of travel at the time was the wrong way around - so it should have been going to Alston when it was coming from there - and vice-versa.
In latter years the last 185 was always empty both ways, and more often than not asides from tourist season you could often carry less than half a dozen people a day on all of the 185 trips.
681 was sometimes a little busier depending on whether an odd group of teenagers wanted to go to Halty to generally make a nuisance of themselves around the train station, but again more often than not it was an odd person here and there that were regulars - and by regular that was more often than not, once a week.
Going to reply together as it's easier otherwise I'll just be parroting myself. See I'm not surprised at all that it's like that, the timing's make it absolutely impossible for anyone who works to use the services so all your going to be left with is a few pensioners who will pop out once in a blue moon.
Personally I don't think conventional bus services work in rural areas as it takes people where they don't want to be and you can't really adjust it since there's no demand in the first place. imo they should start community transport groups where they engage with the pensioners and setup a selection of routes similar to Spirit Group used to be in Rothbury, bar they got no funding at all because Hexham get's most the funding in Northumberland and got forced to close down especially since they changed the X14 timetable so it was impossible to connect the services anymore.
So in the end you end up with services like
Monday - Alston to Haltwhistle
Tuesday - Alston to Hexham
Wednesday - No Service
Thursday - Alston to Haltwhistle
Friday - Alston to Carlisle via Brampton
Saturday - Alston to Hexham
Sunday - No Service
I'd also do the same with the 689 for similar reasons.
I do believe the 680 / 688 should remain though.
The 684 / 687 should be merged again, don't know why they were split so there's more connections and destinations from Newborough.
and the 683/686 withdrawn altogether replaced with a deal with a local taxi firm offering low fares within the zones of those routes, say £3 Max fare for a taxi within Hexham or the 686 route and NCC subsidise it.
Would offer the local residents a much much better service and reduce the amount wasted on buses going where people don't want / need them.