(19 Mar 2023, 12:09 pm)Storx wrote See personally they need to do more, they need to change the routes in Blyth imo so there's only 4 buses max doing express routes from Cramlington to Newcastle and terminate some short in Cramlington, there's no need for so many buses when the train comes.

Personally in Cramlington though I'd have two expresses:
Every 20 Minutes via the X11 Route
Every 20 Minutes via the X9 Route

Then you've covered the vast majority of Cramlington, just need to find a way to make them work across to Blyth maybe using the 43. I wouldn't slow down Beacon Hill services though there's massive housing developments in that area.

With the X7 I'd seriously considering terminating some short at Holywell, it's not particularly busy the other half of the route anyway and look at something else to cover Seaton Delaval to Blyth going elsewhere maybe towards Shiremoor etc.

Maybe Every 20 Minutes, Newcastle to Holywell via Fern Drive and hourly from there to Blyth. People from New Hartley are likely to walk to the new rail station and beyond there it's not busy really and the resources arguably are better on the other half of the route which won't be affected by the railway especially if the X8 didn't exist.

See I'd have thought they would adapt and look to feed in from the train.
They can't stop people making the switch, but they can look at the first and final mile journeys from the stations to home and vice versa.

From what I've seen in Scotland and to a lesser extent elsewhere, it works well when it is implemented. 

A bit of joined up thinking never hurt anyone.

Mind, I've seen it ignored completely and operators not looked at the potential of thousands of customers who would benefit from the final/first mile principle too mind.