04 Dec 2018, 11:46 pm
#26
(04 Dec 2018, 10:03 pm)mb134 I also imagine GNE customers would have something to say if their buses were all taken away and replaced with single deckers!
In all honesty I think ANE need a shake down from top to bottom, and have done for a number of years. The appearance of vehicles is shoddy at the best of times, as is the attitude towards ensuring that services that promise x, y and z have vehicles allocated with x, y and z actually working. The Boxing Day offering is a joke, in comparison to what GNE offer, and they seem to rarely listen to customer complaints. There's no forward thinking, what they brand as "Sapphire" is no longer worth shouting about (especially if half of the features don't work), and there's a huge gap in pay between depots. Poor timetabling has been an issue for as long as I can remember as well, especially on the express routes, and despite constant "reviews" is never actually addressed.
The problem is that things won't change due to Arriva holding a monopoly And the 'express' routes will always make money regardless of how poor or unreliable they are. 'Pack 'em in and run 'em late' has always been the approach.
And one of the annoying gripes was the withdrawal of the late evening Newcastle - Blyth services (308/X10) without good reason or even only limiting them to a Fri & Sat evening or making a route variation (didn't consider tye 23.40 X10 serving 43 route to Cramlington yet introduced a late evening 44/45).
ANE needs a similar approach to what the late Peter Huntley took with GNE. He wasn't perfect by any means but he turned things around and stabilised the business. That's what ANE needs.
- Gold standard (or Sapphire MEANS Sapphire)
- Two-way Radios
- No running early for fag breaks (well most timetables don't allow that anyways)
- Good driving standards (no doing 40 on a clear 60/70 without good reason when the bus is already 10 mins late)
- Strict branding
- Service delivery managers for a group of routes
- Meaningful live chats / consultations
- Simple ticketing
- Better pay for drivers
- Dedicated control rooms / customer services for Northumbria and Durham County
