(20 Apr 2025, 6:21 pm)DaveFromUpNorth wrote what is the obsession of changing bus service number as it goes a different route and merging services.
all this does is confuse the public especially the ones who dont use buses often and they do not know what bus to get.
I heard someone one day asking if the 311 still ran or the 310
If we look at services say in South Shields
look at the GNE service from Sunderland to South Shields it has been numbered 35 20 now
For these because they're completely different services. It's more confusing for someone by not changing them as you'll now have incidents like someone jumping on the 4 in Biddick to go to Lidl and ending up in the Nook etc since they're effectively renumbering the 3 to the 4 and the 4 to the 3.
imo for these it's not a bad thing to let's say intentionally confuse people as it makes people aware that they're actually changing and quite substantially aswell so the same person who never uses the bus isn't totally oblivious to it.
Not to mention having the 18/19 combined advertised the 7.5 minute service on the common section rather than 3/18 which are irrelevant to each other.
It's different to GNE renumbering services for the sake of remembering services like the 35 to 32 or 25 to 22 which has no benefit for anyone.