(03 May 2023, 11:02 am)Storx wrote It's complete absurd though. The whole North East should be one transport area not two. There's not a sudden change travelling from Newton Aycliffe to Darlington it's all one community pretty much.
The political boundaries are a complete mess especially when it comes to places like Bishop Auckland and Newton Aycliffe which are massively connected to Darlington with 2 trains and at least 6 buses an hour.
Now those corridors will be ignored as they're both 'out of zone'. It's questionable how connected Darlington is with the rest of Teesside aswell, there's more buses and trains to Durham than there is to Middlesbrough for example.
I get the point you're making, but the boundaries are always going to need to be drawn somewhere and someone will always complain that it adversely impacts them. The local authority political boundaries make sense, because that's how funding is allocated, budgeted and spent.
If there was something done between Bishop Auckland and Darlington to include it within this new County Durham zone, for the reasons you mention, then who is going to pay for it; Transport North East or Darlington Council?
Just because it's not covered in these tickets, it doesn't stop Arriva or Northern doing something commercially with their bus or train fares between the two places.