(02 Jan 2025, 3:44 pm)busmanT wrote But the Q3 clearly wasn't commercial. It reportedly was almost commercial pre-covid  but increased costs and reduced patronage (I imagine that a lot of Great Park residents now work from home part of the week) mean it can have been nowhere near in latter time.

X47 and Q3 both serving great park wouldn't have worked has there wouldn't have been enough passengers for both of them.

Anyway, Great Park west of the A1 is private land and they (Great Park Consortium) decided to give the bus service contract to Stagecoach with exclusivity.

Yeah I know but the post you made a suggestion that GNE still wanted to run the Q3 over there but I'd assume if they wanted to run it commercially in the first place it still would be running.

I personally don't understand why the Q3 exists. The route is totally operationally out of area and doesn't really support the rest of the network either while not exactly being a gold mine either.

Brunton Park and Jesmond would be much suited in Arriva's or Stagecoach's network since they both already serve the area (30's/40's) and compliment them rather than sitting on the top of everything else.