Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
No they didn’t, despite Ben Maxfield’s very best efforts to heavily imply otherwise.
I did wonder, which is why I went back to June 2016 to see what I wrote at the time about the matter.
It was certainly given by the Tribunal as the reason, but the Tribunal’s reasoning behind that reason was perhaps more indicative of their real motivation. I remain as cynical as I was in 2016.
I note that the partnership working was only raised by NEBOA at the time of the Tribunal. As I said at the time, it was interesting the plans didn’t predate the Tribunal. Nexus were blindsided by NEBOA’s ambush defence and, sadly, the Tribunal just lapped it all up.
And I stand by what I said about the SmartZone tickets, a useless cynical mess that allowed NEBOA to claim they’d complied with their promises on integrated ticketing but- crucially- without making the tickets even slightly commercially appealing.
Clearly Manchester leaned the lessons that Nexus were taught, as they subsequently explored why partnership working was inappropriate for Manchester.
I thought- and still think- that John Conroy crossed over the line between stability and stagnation. Stagecoach, certainly in the early to mid 2000s, just sat back on their laurels- minimal investment, a chronic inability to be punctual, and (related to the punctuality) chronic overcrowding issues after replacing double deckers with ALX300s on the 39/40 and 62/63.
They’ve come back the other way though, starting with those first E400s in 2007/08. And the core network is the same as it’s been for 25 years now, you know what you’re getting and there are no unexpected changes.
Unlike Go in North Tyneside, who decided instead to change their routes as often as they change their underpants. Which is why Percy Main is dead in the water.
