Fleet Changes
Fleet Changes
(03 Oct 2021, 10:51 pm)mb134 Agreed. Advertising things along the route, the frequency, the fares all seem to take a back seat in terms of placement and prominence to cheesy slogans on quite a few liveries these days - and adverts too.I must say some of the "Creative Desire" liveries are boring. I mean the S&D, they have a word and some icons on each side. What happened to liveries like the Drifter/Coaster(old)/Saltwell Parks. Now you have S&D Violet with violet and a flower on the side. Its like they have given up. Xlines have been good.
Absolutely. On a service where it's mainly small hops around a city, even if the route is 90 minutes long, by the time someone signs into the WiFi and plugs in their phone they're already getting off the bus - the money saved by not having those features could go into better overall experiences (running that last journey the full way, spending that bit more on nicer plastics on the interior, making sure there's adequate literature available etc). I get WiFi and chargers on services where folk tend to be on the bus for longer, but especially on city work I don't see the point.
I think my posting history makes clear my opinion on Best Impressions. Aside from the copy and paste liveries, the attitude put across by whoever runs the Twitter account is beyond horrendous. There's the hypocritical stance on covering windows (fine when they design it, but any operator who isn't a member of the cult should be immediately shut down), bizarre comments on certain companies (some post about an Arriva bus having a failed door got the full treatment the other week), and being critical of independent operators helping out bigger companies when they faced driver shortages. Personally, I couldn't care less how 'desirable' the bus to work is as long as it's clean, comfortable, good value, and punctual - and I imagine most commuters are the same, very few commuters use the bus by choice especially in this part of the world. On your comments on Stagecoach and Arriva, I tend to find that both companies keep things very stable (possibly to their detriment at times), which reassures passengers and makes them more comfortable - it's better than the likes of First who love a good network overhaul for no apparent reason.
Again, agreed. Some companies could do much better in terms of presentation, and no doubt it does have an impact on people's perceptions of bus travel. That said, the fares, timetables, punctuality, cleanliness, and reliability will always be more important. Very few people are going to choose a once an hour luxury bus which is £10 for the journey which doesn't run to time due to a poor timetable over the bus that comes every 10 minutes, always runs to time, and costs £5.
(03 Oct 2021, 10:51 pm)mb134 Agreed. Advertising things along the route, the frequency, the fares all seem to take a back seat in terms of placement and prominence to cheesy slogans on quite a few liveries these days - and adverts too.I must say some of the "Creative Desire" liveries are boring. I mean the S&D, they have a word and some icons on each side. What happened to liveries like the Drifter/Coaster(old)/Saltwell Parks. Now you have S&D Violet with violet and a flower on the side. Its like they have given up. Xlines have been good.
Absolutely. On a service where it's mainly small hops around a city, even if the route is 90 minutes long, by the time someone signs into the WiFi and plugs in their phone they're already getting off the bus - the money saved by not having those features could go into better overall experiences (running that last journey the full way, spending that bit more on nicer plastics on the interior, making sure there's adequate literature available etc). I get WiFi and chargers on services where folk tend to be on the bus for longer, but especially on city work I don't see the point.
I think my posting history makes clear my opinion on Best Impressions. Aside from the copy and paste liveries, the attitude put across by whoever runs the Twitter account is beyond horrendous. There's the hypocritical stance on covering windows (fine when they design it, but any operator who isn't a member of the cult should be immediately shut down), bizarre comments on certain companies (some post about an Arriva bus having a failed door got the full treatment the other week), and being critical of independent operators helping out bigger companies when they faced driver shortages. Personally, I couldn't care less how 'desirable' the bus to work is as long as it's clean, comfortable, good value, and punctual - and I imagine most commuters are the same, very few commuters use the bus by choice especially in this part of the world. On your comments on Stagecoach and Arriva, I tend to find that both companies keep things very stable (possibly to their detriment at times), which reassures passengers and makes them more comfortable - it's better than the likes of First who love a good network overhaul for no apparent reason.
Again, agreed. Some companies could do much better in terms of presentation, and no doubt it does have an impact on people's perceptions of bus travel. That said, the fares, timetables, punctuality, cleanliness, and reliability will always be more important. Very few people are going to choose a once an hour luxury bus which is £10 for the journey which doesn't run to time due to a poor timetable over the bus that comes every 10 minutes, always runs to time, and costs £5.
