(16 Apr 2026, 10:27 pm)Busadvocate wrote I think how best to use the BSIP funding was a really tricky policy decision. It was unclear what successor funding would become available, with every reason to think it would be at a considerably lower rate. So a challenge to decide how to do things that would result in a sustainable continuing benefit.
The services that Northumberland has used BSIP for seem mostly things that will always require indefinite funding. Things like services to Wooler or between Morpeth and the airport fills gaps in the network, and will find new passengers, but it would be miraculous if they ever got close to covering their costs. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but it means that if there is no successor funding the services have no future at all, so the new users would be left high and dry.
The "kickstart" things Nexus did with GNE and Stagecoach is a different strategy that matches the time-limited profile of the BSIP grant. Temporary funding to rebuild frequencies that had been eroded during Covid, with the hope that they would regain the patronage that had made those higher frequencies viable pre-Covid. I'd be surprised if the operators were not required to contribute, too, and these will have been the services that in their commercial judgement were most likely to succeed. Even if for whatever reason the higher frequency can't be sustained, at least passengers won't be left with no service.
Perhaps a case of "horses for course", and both are reasonable strategies, reflecting the different circumstances of Northumberland and Nexus?
Disagree personally on this one, even known I get what you say in principal.
No-one and I mean literally no-one is going to go to the bus stop and think 'OMG I ain't using the 1 it's every 10 minutes! Now if it was every 7.5 minutes I'll 100% use it'
It's just absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things, so any growth will be something different.
Hourly services, which used to be every 30 minutes, or 30 minutes services which used to be more frequent, think the likes of the Gateshead 22, Durham 56, Birtley 82, Middlesbrough X10 or the Consett X45 then it's a different ballgame because that's a massive increase and a game changer. These now are all pretty much infrequent services and all 5 of them used to be more frequent pre Covid and imo it would make sense.
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Extra note, if you want to increase stuff like the 1 frequency, the money would be better doing bus measures, if you can save 7 minutes every board while it struggles around Heaton; then those time savings alone could boost the frequency anyway and it's a long term fix. The faster journey times also being a positive and something that would boost numbers.