(11 Jan 2025, 2:05 pm)Adrian wrote Isn't it the case that the central Service Delivery Centre was disbanded, in favour of each depot having its own operation? If so, it's still appears that they're either not empowered to make a decision or lack competence in that decision making.

I've noticed similar several times on the 84/85, on a 20 minute frequency, and they'll just shadow each other for the rest of the day. Despite it being one of the easiest routes to regulate due to its small circular nature.

(11 Jan 2025, 2:17 pm)deanmachine wrote SDC still runs the operations in terms late runnings/diversions/disruptions, the depots now are in charge of dealing with calls from breakdowns, at least that's the case at Sunderland.

(11 Jan 2025, 3:04 pm)Adrian wrote Interesting! Does that work better for breakdowns?

I'd say from a customer perspective, disruption information has gone backwards.

So I was heading from Shiremoor to Boldon via public transport today and this shows everything wrong with public transport - every journey had some sort of issue for customer experience....
I had to walk down from Park Ave to top end of Cobalt to get the 19 (I was surprised the bus was decently full), first issue I wanted to get the 9 to Boldon direct and change somewhere between Percy Main and North Shields. The 9 was due 4 minutes before the 19 at the bottom of Percy Main so I missed it. I thought I would go and wait at the transport hub for 15 minutes and I didn't mind that. However due to the tunnel having works on a weekend the 9 only extends from Jarrow once an hour so it was not worth me waiting. I changed my plan and stayed on the 19 to get the Ferry across instead. The 19 seems pretty well timed with the ferry however the 317 clearly isn't as I heard people complaining about this on the ferry as they had to wait for it to return. 
After I got off the Ferry it was so Icy and I could see most people including myself really struggling to walk as there was no grit down. When I got up to the road useful & 'requested' S1 passed me with no one on it. The destination just said South Shields on the front even though it just left the Interchange so basically if you didn't already know where it was going you wouldn't stop the bus.
When at the Interchange the next bus to Boldon was the 50 and I was looking forward to this journey as it was in time and I havent got the 50 in a while. As soon as we reversed and left the Interchange the warning beeping came on and was so loud from a passenger perspective never mind the driver. The bus in question 6303 and obviously Washington based. We got to Westoe at the KFC and we broke down. The driver tried 3 times to get the engine back on. She told all the passengers that she tried to carry on the journey for them as she had the warning lights pop on for a minute every so often so hoped it would be ok. She explained she had no working radio on the bus and was trying the feature on the ticket machine to contact the depot s she has needed coolant all afternoon and she was getting naff responses and told it was 'being reviewed' or some generic wording to that effect. She rang Washy Depot who said they would send out engineers when possible. Luckily passengers only had to wait 18 mins for the next one as it was on time.

Me on the other hand I had to meet someone in Cleadon (I jumped on the arriving 24 at the time) to take me to my destination as the 5 was cancelled and I was already later than I wanted to be. 

So in about 90 mins I had to 5 modes of transport and still default to a car after everything. This journey would've been no longer than 20 mins in a car even with the Tyne tunnel works.