WibbleWobble
Member
Traffic congestion would make the services incredibly unreliable, which is probably the reason why they were split in the first place. Both sets of routes have a number of congestion hotspots which would be harder to mitigate against with a very long route running via several main roads - going off the timetable, the 13/13a will have around 10 minutes at either end to aid recovery. Parley Crossroads is a particular problem. That's before you consider Northbourne, Canford Bottom and Fleetsbridge amongst others, then the effects of beach traffic.I think it would be a good idea in the long term for Morebus to merge the 3 & 4 with the 13 & 13a, creating two mega routes linking Poole, Broadstone, Wimborne, Ferndown, Northbourne and Bournemouth. This harks back to the days of the 132/133 which ran the exact same route 20 years ago.
It would also be harder to stitch together with the differing headways and the additional 3x variation.