(24 Feb 2014, 7:25 pm)tyresmoke wrote There's a fine line between propping up evening/Sunday services and giving value to the service at off peak, less profitable times, in order to sell weekly tickets to your regular passengers. Especially at these off peak times, if you're going to chop services to the bone and offer connections then you have to make sure they work properly.

Arriva cost cut at the minute. They reduce the frequency of the 306 after about 14:30 towards Newcastle in favour of the X9 runs. Now don't get me wrong, GNE do this with the Cobalt Clipper services but not at school kicking out times. But Arriva do it at school kicking out times when Monkseaton, Whitley Bay High, Marden Bridge and Tommy Moore are kicking out and flocking onto the 308. Even worse, the 306 is only running half hourly at that particular time meaning that despite the demand remaining the same as 8 buses ph, only 6 buses ph are running meaning that the 308 is struggling to keep to time.