(16 Mar 2014, 4:04 pm)Dan wrote That's exactly what the problem is. Bus stations should be designed with these things in mind, but in my opinion, they haven't been.

Stands A-G at Park Lane probably work a lot better than Stands H-V as there appears to be a lot less issues. Breakdowns/vehicle issues have been known to occur on Stands A-G too mind, but drivers have in the past been able to work around it (I recall when 4920 had problems with changing from reverse to drive, an Arriva bus just decided to cut over the layover bays to get to its usual stand).

Durham, Eldon Square and Haymarket are far too compact. When you compare the sizes of those bus stations compared to the 'better' bus stations you gave as examples, is it any wonder that those are far superior?

But how can you design bus stations for occasional 'issues' like late buses? The simple matter is you can't.

The issue with Middlesbrough is the fact some drivers (for all companies not just one) seem only to be able to try using Stand 11 (the one slap bang in the middle of the horseshoe) to set down (it is the official set-down stand) however when you've got buses turning up all the time, there's plenty more stands to be used. The only other problem is the doors - the 'In' and 'Out' way doesn't work in my mind and all stands (bar stand 1/2/20/21 as those bring issues) should have been done with one set of double doors as on Stand 11. Although the key problem is the fact the refurbishment was done on the cheap (hence the reason it was completed 2 weeks earlier than originally forecast and the door issues were there on the first day).