(08 Feb 2025, 6:45 pm)V514DFT wrote The 18 is a funny route, sometimes it's packed, and sometimes it's totally dead, but it's quite surprising that it's still going, problem is is the shadowing of routes
37/62/63(in part)/352/353(in part)/354(in part)/X63 (in part)
38/63/355
Then as of March throw the 342 and 356 into the mix
Technically the 18 and 335 could be merged together, Powder Monkey-Benton is covered by the 342

Aye to be fair it serves quite a few important links especially to the Freeman but it's just a dead end at both ends. No-one and I mean no-one wants to go to Walker as there's nothing there and it's the same with Benton Square which probably suggests the dead flows tbh.

Not going to lie, I've always thought it would be good to head in the 6/7 direction to see a sort of outer loop service which would involve working with the Great Park which would integrate all the subsidised routes like this:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/55.00045...?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIwNS4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Which includes the
M71: Kingston Park to Westerhope
49: Great Park to Gosforth
553: Regent Centre to Freeman
18: Freeman to Walker
Q3: St Peter's to Wallsend

Would create a quite useful service linking up quite a few key places and the tax payers are paying for the full thing pretty much anyway bar from Kingston Park to the Great Park in bits and pieces especially for The Great Park as they're very vocal for a link to the Freeman so might aswell call their bluff.

Whether you wanted to go further South that's an option but obviously that's probably better suited to be decided by people in the West End.