(07 Apr 2025, 5:01 pm)logidoodah wrote You see, what I would do would be to keep the E's as combined every 10 mins (as otherwise, the frequency of Whitburn would be stupidly frequent). I would do this instead...
E1 - no change
E2 - no change
E6 - Routed through Roker park & park ave
19/20 - Pennywell to Seaburn
To not allow frequency reductions and make clean headways between buses I would extend the 20 onto the nothern half of the 23 and also decrease it to every 20 mins. I would then also create a route 19 which follows the 20 in its entirity but when it gets to Fulwell turns right to go up Dykelands rd (to replace the E6 here). Dene Estate loop would be reduced by 1 bph but has the E2, 19 and (GNE) 24 surrounding it. This change keeps Fulwell Rd at 6 bph but with 10 min evenly spaced frequency and enables there to be spaced timings in between the 10/11 (enabling buses to not bunny hop each other all the way along Hylton Road) and creates a 5 min frequency [headway with 4x 20min freq routes].
This also allows and increase in bph for Dykelands Road by 1, Hylton Rd by 1, and Park Ave by 1.
Heck to replace the northern end of the 18 you could extend the 558 to Leechmere ASDA or Park Lane (via Pallion) with the 599 going to Leechmere...lots of options
Yeah not a bad shout either to be honest. You're right there is loads of options really. I do kind of think there should be 4 BPH between South Shields and the beach though, what route it is that does that, then who knows hence the E suggestion. I do agree that Whitburn would be stupidly overbussed though.
Mind if they did that 19/20 I wish they'd number it the 6 and 7 or something instead. Confusing as hell having 2, 20's in the same city which serve the same streets and the GNE 20 is more known than the SNE one. Similar argument with the 8 aswell which literally serve the same bus stops (SNE 8 and GNE 8A)