(01 Feb 2014, 8:02 am)Greg in Weardale wrote 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.
Cant honestly say by cutting the 18.40 X21 was unjust, it carried very few passengers from newcastle to chester & durham and them hardly any onwards to bishop. Obviously with regards to the X7 the journeys being withdrawn were being used by very few passengers to justify it, and the X3 is in competition with the metro it was never gonna work so having it the way it is because thats what the councilors & the oaps say "they'll use it", want it but only time before it goes tbh.