Aaron21 wroteI've always wanted the 9 to return to North Shields but with the 10/11 now going to the hub. Don't know how stagecoach would take it. Reading through old timetables showed the 5 to Wallsend & the 9 to North Shields. Them were the days. Don't think we will ever see that
1) The 9 used to be every 20 mins through the tunnel (2x to North Shields and 1x 9A to Wallsend). Stagecoach couldn't do anything about it if another operator commercially (won't happen) or nexus changes the contract as it is a contract.
(22 Jan 2024, 10:47 pm)Unber43 wrote Really the 5 could been bolted onto the Q3, and the 9 goes all the way through to AShington when the 19 used to go there all the time
2) The last thing people want is another long winded route from South of the Tyne to Newcastle (disadvantages of light rail systems impacting buses). That would be an awful route [Q3+5] sorry but it would. And the 19 has always ran with support from Cobalt AFAIK and went to Ashington once an hour with the other a short one. Then got reduced to peaks then withdrawn and never replaced.
(22 Jan 2024, 10:51 pm)Storx wrote Must admit the 10/11 combination is a bit bizarre, can't really see the connections it makes as it doesn't serve anything really, definitely an operational thing. Going to disagree with the 9 going to Shields on a purely selfish basis as I live on the 19 route and it'd be nice for a cross river route
Talking about BSIP though, the 19 should run in the evenings and Sunday to give East Cramlington, the new hospital and the new estates near Northumberland Park a bus service, could be easily be done by dropping the rest of the route to hourly. There's nothing on all 3 currently and run it until 9pm or so.
3) The 10/11 is a contract as stated before except they merged the contracts of Primrose - Jarrow - North Shields (both 30 mins). Cost wise this is beneficial for Nexus and actually has decent numbers using it from when I've used it can be up to 10 people (not bad for a contract).
Overall I think the 10/11 should be kept the same and the 19+9 merger would be interesting to see the viability of it. But as with anything comes down to promotion/cost/reliability and most importantly going where people need to be. The 9 is a bizarre route currently due to be chopped and chopped then extended then merged with 61 then reverted to what it is now. Shame because there is definitely potential to extend or even increase the freq as it definitely makes healthy money.