(05 Aug 2018, 5:26 pm)9920up Interesting comments about liveries and repaints etc. The point here is about customer service. Currently the customer seems to not count. Arriva are keen to sell their product but the customer doesn't know what the product or its standard is. Vehicles are turned out in a range of liveries. Beneath that is a range of brands and then labelling for routes beneath those brands. However, arriva consistently and regularly mix these up running incorrect brands and route brands on incorrect routes. We all get the need for maintenance and that vehicles fail but if the company can't adhere to it's own brands, why bother in the first place. All that you get is customer confusion .Arrina fare very badly in this area and were it not for the lack of competition would lose out badly when fighting for customers .
It's interesting how well they can do when they put their mind to it though. Thinking back to when they faced competition on Ashington expresses, and their launch of the X30 to counter GNEs X41, they selected some of the quickest vehicles in the fleet, painted them into a striking livery, and I believe had a few selected drivers. Another example would be the X1 competition, which Arriva again handled excellently with 1404-7.
Bar the upturn in standards when Sapphire and MAX initially launched, they've became very complacent.
