(24 May 2023, 6:53 pm)Storx wrote Just buses which are consistently late because of reasons outside of operational problems.
Like the X7 is basically 20 - 25 minutes late every night nowadays at peak time because of the farce at Gosforth Park (which is worse than ever).
Case in point today, I arrived at Hatymarket for the 17:10 X7 home, I usually sit in the seats for the lay down bay Y as queuing is a free for all at stand V for the X7/8/9. A X7 arrives at the same times as a X8, the X7 being the previous 16:40 departure, and a single decker, 1502 - NK12 FLP, which leaves at 17:13 rather toasty. Traffic was backed up from Matthew Bank to Haddricks Mill roundabout, and again from the Gosforth Park/Dobbies/Moorfields roundabout and the Sandy Lane roundabout. By the time it got into Seghill, that service was almost 1 hour behind schedule.
IMHO the problem with the X7/8 (and the 363/364 before it) is that the routes are too convoluted and pass through two major pinch pints (Haddricks Mill and the Sandy Lane roundabouts), with the recent "improvement" schemes doing nowt to help. How to solve it? In the past the seem to work better when they don't interwork with each other, and perhaps being radical, you could divert the X7 along the Coast Road to Silverlink, then up the A19 to the Killingworth turn off and then up the Backworth Lonnen to Seghill, though I doubt that would be popular with the reasoned of Burradon or the new sprawling estates along the A189.