(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.
GNE love the hub and spoke model, ig is what their network is built on these days - but buses from the hub, cant be making much money if local services feeding into the hub are cut.
Look at the cuts the 21 has taken on a morning.
Is it any wonder numbers have dropped, if passengers see their local route cut - they cant get to Durham or Chester to get a 21...
Granted the local services may not make much money, but ultimately, the impact is felt further into the network.
Say the early 21s carried an average of 10 fare paying passengers - not a decent load, but just enough.
6 of those passengers get on the 21 at Chester/Durham, transferring onto it from 4 local services, but see those local services axed due to poor loadings.
End result, that early morning run of the 21 is axed, because it now only carries 4 passengers and makes a loss.
Adam made a very good point about this a few weeks back specific to the costs involved.