(06 Apr 2025, 10:18 pm)Michael wrote I mean, I used the 18 alot between Jan and Feb but haven't since then however when I did use it, i go on at around 11am (weekday) and it maybe picked up between 4 or 5 people between Springwell and Queen Alex bridge.
Thats the exact problem with all the routes in Sunderland, half of them are just a waste and soon as the companies want to do changes the council/locals etc kick off saying "i need the service" but I bet half of them don't even use the route.
Would be interesting if it became a contract service though and have someone other than Stagecoach run it.
The cuts does mean Sunderland are likely to lose more buses, probs the ADL E200.
I mean you're right, its different and new, look how decent the 599 is doing since its launch.
Yeah definitely, personally I think it's a shame that Stagecoach and NECA haven't worked together as it seems like they've just ignored Stagecoach's warnings about profits.
Working together they could easily done something like splitting the 8 at Pennywell and having one bus an hour doing the 18 to Gilley Law and the other still going to South Hylton and rerouting the 99 to Seaburn instead of Castletown since the 599 already exists doing it.
Would've been a subsidy for 1 bus and actually made one of the routes (99) actually useful. The 8 clearly isn't doing well either so would've killed two birds with one stone and the 18 doesn't run on a Sunday or evenings anyway so there's no issues there either.