Go North East

[Brandon]

RE: Go North East
To be honest, I find Nexus rather cumbersome to deal with. Following the withdrawal of service 99 from the Clacton Road Bus Terminus area of Hylton Castle, I asked Nexus in October last year if they would look into installing a southbound bus stop on Ferryboat Lane as an alternative for passengers, which would also benefit the NexusBus 592. I was delighted to hear that progress was being made to introduce through the normal procedures new bus stops on Ferryboat Lane. Nine months or so later, there is still no bus stop in place. There is a gap of around 1km between the southbound bus stop on Cardigan Road in Hylton Castle, and the eastbound bus stop on Ringway in Castletown; a route potentially serving the entire southern end of Hylton Castle. This is still something I’m chasing up. I asked Go North East about this on OpenLine on Wednesday, and I was informed that they will be looking at the route of service 99 for service changes later in the year, so I’m hoping there’s a chance that buses will revert back to serving Clacton Road.

With regards to secured services, I made a suggestion to Nexus last year regarding the NexusBus 135/136. Nexus had proposed evening/Sunday trips on the Stagecoach 18/19 route in a consultation a few years ago. Sadly, I was informed that Nexus’ budget was already fully committed in retaining existing levels of service. I suggested re-working the 135/136 into an hourly 99A from Sunderland to Seaburn, but instead of operating into Morrison’s, continue up the coast and into South Bents Estate instead. This would have given an evening/Sunday link on the 18/19 route from South Bents Estate, Seaburn, and Fulwell across to Pallion and the Royal Hospital, at no extra cost to Nexus. The reply was that Nexus were reluctant to make changes that could damage the income currently generated by these services. I don’t understand why the taxpayer should be paying for the link on the 135/136 to Sunderland when there are commercial alternatives available; the half hourly 11 to Trimdon Street, and the 3/4/13/16 each every 20/30 minutes to the North Estates. So it seems that 135/136 will continue to piggyback upon the success of Stagecoach, while those on the 18/19 route to the Royal Hospital benefit from no such evening/Sunday service. Great.

What Nexus haven’t told the general public about that £60 odd million paid to operators, is that the reduction in commercial evening/Sunday services is likely to be due in part from the free concessionary travel scheme. If operators are only paid the same amount irregardless of distance travelled, then it’s inevitable that some journeys will run at a loss. I’m led to understand this is why the Arriva X60/X61 was withdrawn, despite the packed out buses.
Go North East have proposed a “bus only” version of the Network One ticket in their Say Yes Now campaign. This would overcome the problems of using more than one bus operator, and benefit passengers by serving as a bar to keep commercial tickets from exceeding. Working in partnership has been shown to work in East Gateshead, with Go North East paying into a fund when certain standards aren’t met. The partnership in South Tyneside looks set to cascade Citaros onto the Crusader 27 at some point, and has worked to deliver a substantially improved bus service to Hebburn, Monkton Lane and Luke’s Lane on South Tyne 88/88A in place of the service 16.

I do want to see improvements in bus operations, but I believe this is best achieved through active partnership between bus operators, local councils, and the general public. There’s no reason why an agreement could not be reached in partnership with Nexus, whereby if a high floor bus was used for any commercial journey in Tyne and Wear, or if a wheelchair ramp did not work, or if reliability was not met, money would then be put into a fund for Nexus to support and grow the network of secured services.

I actually like the branding to be honest; I don’t think there’s a single one I don’t like. Having said that, I do prefer the former Venture branding with the maroon skirt; but I appreciate that it is cheaper to have a single colour coat, especially in today’s economic climate and the nature of the Consett work. It’s encouraging to hear of Go North East’s enthusiasm to dispose of SPD’s, but there are still an awful lot of them and replacements would have to be sought for the likes of the 17 and 38.