Blyth Transport in 2016 – How it could be

It's been a good year for public transport in Blyth. The re-opening of the Bates Colliery line as an energy efficient people mover link to the new transport interchange at Newsham from the town centre has completed a process begun when SE Northumberland PTE was created in 2009. With electric / hybrid power buses operating town services on the Cowpen Road, Plessey and Beach lines public transport inside the town is now carbon neutral, an ambition that was beyond the borough council in 2006.

Not everything is rosy though. Problems obtaining sufficient rolling stock have led to some timekeeping problems on the AB&T, with trains not meeting their timekeeping targets. Train units have been obtained from operators who found them surplus to requirements after replacing them with more up to date units, and it is hoped that, with the re-opening of Chathill and Belford next year, the service will continue to be the spine of public transport in south east Northumberland and further north. Looking forward, discussions are still underway with Nexus as to the possibility of replacing the current train fleet with dual power rolling stock that can transfer to the Metro system and run under electric power from Backworth to South Gosforth, with some journeys extending to Jesmond overground.

The plans for redevelopment of Cramlington Station will go to a public inquiry in 2017. They require the approval of the secretary of state for the relocation of the train station to the south of its existing location, a d the creation of a third pass through track to help speed express services past local trains. Having said that, SENPTE's proposal to replace the existing local services with an express service operated by surplus 95 mph multiple units will, by raising average speeds on the line, enable more services to be run. The proposed services, to Carlisle and Durham via Newcastle, will start and end at Morpeth, although approval is being sort for a peak hour service in each direction to run Edinburgh – Durham and Morpeth – Glasgow via Carlisle. Such services would have been unthinkable before the introduction of road charging.

The other strand of public transport in Cramlington is the links between the new bus station on the site of the old police station to Newsham by a fast high volume service, and the development of the bus priority route via Dudley and Wideopen to Newcastle Great Park and the Regent Centre. These services are operated in partnership by the PTE and bus companies, using modern vehicles designed to attract passengers from the winnable 30% of commuters likely to give up their cars for an alternative.

None of this would have been possible without the integrated ticketing that was a central plank of the operating programme of the PTE. Passengers have always resisted interchanges between modes where ticketing problems might occur; the integrated ticketing system adopted in 2011 were an essential element in the new public transport offer. The changes coming on stream now, where each passengers ticket holder acts as an information assistant, providing real time information on arrival times and journey progress via a combination of GPS and SMS has been described by passenger groups as 'genuinely liberating'.