(23 Mar 2026, 3:34 pm)S830OFT wrote First day of the 599 and only one bus operating this afternoon. Apparently they have had a "breakdown". Guess it sounds better than a "puncture" which is a bit old now.

They did get both of the new buses onto the route this morning it seems, so presume the 82 would have been allocated whatever was spare.

Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

Could see this happening, but not first day

(23 Mar 2026, 3:34 pm)S830OFT wrote Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

This seems to be an almost daily occurrence at this point, 42 & 71 having journeys which don't operate, often taking a bus from one to allocate to the other, another is the Durham 40/40A/41 being cut from two buses to one, leading to the one bus having to do a hybrid of both routes [40/40A] so trips are doing something like Cathedral - Waterside - Rail Station - Cathedral.

Only one bus on the 71 at the moment one of the 19 seater Mercs with 4 rear facing seats! Whilst the other bus that was on has been taken off at Seaham after only 1 run to go onto the 168, again...

GCT might aswell just hand the contract back as they are just not fulfilling their contractual obligation to provide a service.

One month with only one bus on the Cathedral bus too, I feel sorry for the poor drivers who will no doubt be getting all the questions, not helped by the fact the 42 also tends to go missing at 11am for the rest of the day so the bus can go onto the 71.

They could be a really great company, but sadly they are not doing things correctly at the moment.

Absolutely shambolic  company, should never have been given the 599 contract, Northstar were fine. The Saturday running of 319 service shows how poor and unreliable they are especially with the lack of the ferry crossing.

The 19 has stopped tracking as well, largely anyway, there was a couple of trips tracked this morning then stopped. I hope this changes again as this service experiences a lot of delays at peak times, but with GCT you never know if its coming or not. Especially as they have upped their PVR again.

(24 Mar 2026, 3:21 pm)Baywatcher wrote Absolutely shambolic  company, should never have been given the 599 contract, Northstar were fine. The Saturday running of 319 service shows how poor and unreliable they are especially with the lack of the ferry crossing.

To be fair, they've not been given much time to mobilise, as discussed in the March tenders thread

(24 Mar 2026, 6:08 pm)Kimlfixit wrote To be fair, they've not been given much time to mobilise, as discussed in the March tenders thread

Ummmmm ...... shouldn't they have planned for that BEFORE bidding for or accepting the contract .....?

Day three this week & it's happened again.

The bus from the 71 (WX75OBP) has been taken off the route at Seaham after it's first full trip to go onto the 168.

Explain to the customers on the next trip wanting to go to Chester-le-Street & the trip after to go back to Seaham why their bus has not operated for three consecutive days, just so the bus can go run another route.

Obviously it seems DCC seem to be more lenient recently towards their contracted services not operating in full, especially given one of their routes has not operated with two vehicles for over a month now (40/40A) - a route which is used by mostly elderly & disabled people to get up to the Train Station and Cathedral.

Guys, are you reporting these issues anywhere, or just on here?

If you haven’t already, email:
buses@northeast-ca.gov.uk

Never mind guys... have a read of the FOI contract obligations and if you think there is a breech email it in with evidence

Just remember they are paid using Government money

Anyone able to comment on the 19/19A

The 19, 82 & 599 are all tracking on bus times now.