RE: Newcastle City Council - Better Bus routes
(4 hours ago)DaveFromUpNorth wrote interesting about the 56...
I would mix it up...
56 All stopping service as normal
N56 leave it as it is
X56 All stops Newcastle to Gateshead Interchange than Non stop to Concord then all stops from Concord to Sunderland (Driver can go any route dictated by management aka ticket machine)
x56 only runs 7am -9am and 4pm-7pm on a 3 month trial.
departs 2 minute after the 56 (slow bus) so it follows in Newcastle city Centre basically and gives the driver option to tell people get the bus behind it is quicker and by doing this you speed both services up in theory in terms of unloadin
See I think the 56X is a bad idea personally. The X1 is the route to mess around imo and drop the thing down to every 30 minutes, with a new X2 doing something like:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Newcastl...4b!1m0!3e0 which gives other further out parts a bus service to Newcastle, at all, since not a single bus stop between CLS and Houghton on that route has one, merging to be every 15 minutes from Houghton to Peterlee/Hetton
The service down that is way is awful, especially Washington itself and the Shiney Row/Penshaw area. You've now got the rest of the X1 and 4 to mess around with and deal with it imo. Not to mention potential extensions beyond to the likes of Sunderland / Seaham.
That's where your cars are coming from... Doxford Park, also being a nightmare to get to aswell while we're at it. For example, merge one of the X1's, 37 and 62 which would give tons of direct Newcastle links and Doxford Park aswell?
Duplicating a 12 minute service with an express bus is wrong when you've got areas nearby with nothing and no real sensible connection either unless you want to change at Heworth on the 4 via a mystery tour of the North East with journey times of 90 minutes plus which is unacceptable and that's if you have the 4, at all.
I know Arriva is hated my a lot on here, but credit to their SE Northumberland Network, nearly every single house has some form of bus direct to Newcastle, with an express bit on it aswell, heck even most of Northumberland where they serve, including small places like Rothbury, Felton and Thropton with hourly services. Their East Cleveland network is much of the same with Middlesbrough aswell.