(01 Feb 2014, 12:52 am)Acky81 wrote I rode the 209pm x3 from Gateshead to Monkwearmouth 4 passengers all the way fast journey in 30mins but such a shame to see the service reach an all time low!!!
Yes, it's the most useless bus timetable I have ever seen and GNE should be ashamed of it. I'm afraid things like this and the regular service cuts and constant changes by GNE start to make me think that the Nexus Quality Contract might be the way forward, but then I look at Stagecoach in Newcastle and Sunderland and think, no, they do a good job and the QC would be a waste of money. GNE must realise it's no good investing millions in new depots, buses with wi-fi, etc, when they're cutting routes, timetables are rubbish and don't provide useful services. They must look at each route as an entity, rather than a collection of individual journeys, because if you cut one or two runs (especially at the shoulders of the peak or by taking buses out to do schools, both of which they've done to the X3 over the last couple of years and cutting peak journeys on X7 and X21 recently) you destroy the integrity of the route, lessen its usefulness and therefore lose passengers. Also each route must form part of an overall network in which routes link together to provide a complementary structure and enable passengers to connect between routes to travel around the company's area easily.