North East Buses

I guess Arriva has cut the marketing budget and hired the level of experience of City Transport staff these days. 

The latest fireworks social media post looks like something I'd think is bad for a local pub, never mind an international transport company trading across the whole of Europe.

This, as I expect it'll be deleted before long so it can have a permanent existence:
[attachment=11365]

It's not the first post in recent weeks with the embarrassing Bobby Robson post and another with a Halloween post either. If you're going to go down the AI slop route, least make it look like Stockton...

The Bus looks like a MAN 18:220 Marcopolo Viale crossed with an Volvo MCV Evora.

(30 Oct 2026, 3:36 pm)Malarkey wrote [ -> ]The Bus looks like a MAN 18:220 Marcopolo Viale crossed with an Volvo MCV Evora.

Looks like a bit of Enviro300 in it too

It's a huge shame instead of posting AI slop like this. they won't do an NMS (Blyth/Ashington) & United (Durham & Tees) liveried decker to mark 30 years of Cowie & Arriva in the North East.

It's a bit too 'sentimental' shall we say for the people sitting in Luton going by the response I got when suggested.

Stagecoach did this perfectly with the former Busways and C&T examples!

(01 Nov 2026, 8:54 am)L469 YVK wrote [ -> ]It's a huge shame instead of posting AI slop like this. they won't do an NMS (Blyth/Ashington) & United (Durham & Tees) liveried decker to mark 30 years of Cowie & Arriva in the North East.

It's a bit too 'sentimental' shall we say for the people sitting in Luton going by the response I got when suggested.

Stagecoach did this perfectly with the former Busways and C&T examples!

The thing is, apart from enthusiasts would anyone really care? Just asked a couple of friends who are my age and used Northumbria and their response was they don't even look at the colour of the bus, they just hope it turns up. 

I do think their marketing is poor looking at what has been shared here, but I do think branding the buses in old livery would be a waste of money.