(Yesterday, 12:45 pm)S830OFT wrote With the service changes upon us, personally this would have been better to avoid a major fiscal cliff, reducing some of the impact, opposed to completely withdrawing a high frequency service, I.e. service 17.
E1. Service route will remain unchanged, although may need slightly retiming to incorporate a better frequency with the additional E services...
E2. Service route will remain unchanged, although may need slightly retiming to incorporate a better frequency with the additional E services...
E6. This service would incorporate service 7 & 8, with journeys revised to operate via Laygate opposed to the Town Hall in both directions.
Ideally, with the service replacing parts of service 7/8, reinstating the Evening & Sunday frequency back to up to every 30 minutes.
E7. This service will operate up to every 30 minutes Mon - Sat Daytimes, combining with service E6 to offer a 15 minute frequency along common sections. The service will however service Roker Park & Roker Baths Road towards Sunderland, directly replacing service 18 on this section of route.
The service will not operate on an Evening or Sunday, although additional journeys on service E6 introduced to allow for two buses per hour along the route.
Route Map (South Shields - Laygate - Chichester - Mortimer Road - Harton Nook - Marsden - Lizard Lane - Whitburn Front Street - Seaburn Morrisons - Roker Park - Roker Baths Road - Wheatsheaf Depot - Sunderland Fawcett Street)
E8. This service will replace service 7/8 between South Shields and Marsden only via the Town Hall, Marine College & Horsley Hill. When the bus arrives at Marsden, it will return back to South Shields on the opposite side of the road, opposed to operating as a circular service. This service will continue to operate up to every 15 minutes & with it's current frequency outside of this.
Passengers from Horsley Hill & along the route will continue to have transport to Harton Nook via service 10/11, X34 & 516, aswell as connecting buses at Marsden or in South Shields...
These alterations will see an increase to eight E services per hour between South Shields and Sunderland, whilst also carefully making use of the available resources.
The already planned service changes outside of this are already unavoidable now, although it may have been better to have considered whether reducing service 17, whilst also sending service 3 into Whiteleas would have been a better solution opposed to it's complete withdrawal. Now services alike the 3 will be increasingly busier, which won't even get a frequency increase to compensate this, which especially during term time will more than likely see significant overcrowding when these changes take place...
Not sure getting rid of the 7/8 is a good idea personally. At least when they're in a loop they're picking passengers up while dropping people off. If you curtail it, then you'll end up with buses which are dead by the end as it goes nowhere - unless you extended that 8 to go somewhere useful ie. replace the likes of the 30, to the hospital or what not.
Personally if I was them I would've scrapped the 3 instead and kept the 17 and 18 with the 17 additionally doing Biddick.
It's a hell of a lot less confusing that having a 3/18 every 7.5 minutes on the core section (they pretty much follow each other right now).
The short section of 3 which is abandoned is served by multiple services for the 2 stops and would give the Chi area a clean 7.5 minute service down one corridor (7/8/17) rather than 3 15 minutes services down multiple corridors.
If they weren't stupid and made South Shields into a one way loop the 17/18 could've combined and created a loop through South Shields aswell but obviously that didn't happen. Another short sight from the usual transport planners as you can't get a bus to/from ASDA without a substantial walk in one direction.