(06 Apr 2015, 4:30 pm)aureolin wrote With exception of Xmas Day, New Years Day and Easter Sunday, I'd argue that the volumes wanting to travel on a bank holiday do not differ much from a Saturday. You might get a lot more wanting to travel to the coast on a nice day like today, but to be fair, you're going to get that on any other day too. Rain wouldn't have stopped people wanting to travel to city centres, to the Metrocentre, and anywhere else they can have a day out. 

The last few bank holidays that I've travelled out on have been chaos. Not for traffic levels and congestion, but simply for the amount of people wanting to travel on the same bus, because the frequency doesn't meet the demand. That's the same across Tyne and Wear. Not just one operator.

You might be surprised how bus drivers love a cold wet day, outside of the peaks passenger numbers drop by about 30%. This big drop is usually in ENCTS holders, the majority of which is not necessary travel.  

The trouble with day out travelers on Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays is its tidal flow so you take a full bus one way and bring nothing back until later in the day. Through my experience that's why the vast amount of services that have been tried over the years to the likes of the MetroCentre have failed. Now you could say the likes of GNE or Stagecoach are missing a trick there, run something from say Cleveland and instead of it sitting in the coach park all day or taking fresh air back then back to take your passengers home it could be used on extra services on the X66 or 100, unfortunately we have allowed to many into the industry that have no flare or dedication with having no experience of how anything can run.