Looking at the network over the past few years, it's clear that the current staff do not know how to grow a network. There have been no frequency improvements in Northumbria that haven't been council/BSIP funded. Indeed, I can't think of a single Arriva Northumbria route which has got better (commercially, not subsidised) over the past 10 years?
My expectation is that, given Ashington have barely ran any services for the past year on the 35, X21, and X22, they'll see reduced passenger numbers and assume reduced demand - and slice the frequencies of at least some of these routes. I'd be fairly confident that they keep the 35 every 20 minutes and slice the other two (a minimum of one of them). They don't have the intellectual capacity to realise that passenger numbers will be reduced due to services not running - and definitely don't have the capacity to realise that reducing the frequencies will put even more people off using the services.
It's a shame really, I'd have hoped the new investment and new overall leadership would have seen a change in approach - but it seems the managed decline of Arriva NE will continue.
(09 Feb 2026, 6:45 pm)Andreos1 wrote Taxpayer funded?
Do the ANE commercial team know how to extend a route without some form of subsidy?