(16 Oct 2025, 3:57 pm)PH - BQA wrote Absolutely agreed that buses are the easiest solution to this, both short term and likely longer term too. 

I feel like better bus prioritisation is one of the easiest, and cheapest, ways to improve current bus services and open up corridors to extra services. Traffic light priority (even a change of sequences would do), extended bus lanes, and even creation of BRT lanes would all help and would be cheap solutions in comparison to Metro extensions etc. 

I also think, generally, there needs to be a shift of mind from people to be more open to using the bus. My bus to work gets delayed almost constantly by 10-15 minutes Monday to Thursday, yet on a Friday where evidently people are WFH/non-working it sails through and gets to destination early. The bus takes 30+ people every day, yet all of those people are delayed because of cars containing 1 person. The route is well connected to other buses/Metro, starts next to a car park with a minimal fee, and serves two huge employment sites (with another at the end I get on).

You'll never convert people to bus users, because of the simple fact it's a bus.

Unless it runs direct, people aren't going to be sitting on there going around the houses and if it doesn't go round the houses then it has no people. P&R at Rail and Metro sites are the long term answer for this imo.

You just have to look at how well the stations on the Northumberland Line are doing for that and Callerton Parkway on the Metro is also always well used. 

Sadly there's not really any sensible P&R South of the Tyne as by the time you get to the Metrocentre and/or Heworth you're past most the traffic and might aswell do the rest of it. Similar discussion at Regent Centre, Four Lane Ends and Northumberland Park which are generally pretty poorly used. The last which has been shut for months now.