When I moved from Norfolk to Weardale in 2009 Go North East was interesting and innovative and, let's face it, Arriva was pretty bad. GNE was led by dynamic manager(s), ran what seemed to me logical timetables in a good overall network. I thought it a positive move that various less frequent routes were grouped into single 10 minute headway services eg X1, 27, 56. But over the last few years the innovation and dynamism have gone and we have too-frequent piecemeal chopping and changing and some really badly designed timetables - but in spite of the cuts the finances aren't improving according to the comments in the annual report. I have no knowledge of Arriva's financial performance, but they've definitely improved the public perception of themselves with Sapphire, Max and Frequenta, even though Max is often just tarting up pretty ancient buses. GNE must reverse the decline and in my humble opinion (as a bus company manager in a previous life) that can be done by looking at their network as a whole, rather than by frequent bitty individual route changes, and simplifying the fare structure - cheapish area tickets are OK for regular passengers changing buses, but you've got to attract occasional users as well who want a reasonably priced day return from A to B and an incentive not to take the car.
