South of the Tyne, at the very least, Arriva's Sapphire and Max services mostly cover areas where there is no GNE presence and never has been. There is the tiniest overlap between GNE's Indigo services and Arriva's 22/24 which have always carried way more capacity and a token inroad by the X12 in the Durham-CLS-Gateshead-Newcastle spine where GNE pretty much have dominance.
And, AFAIK, in the past decade, GNE's identity has been all about the recognisable route brands. It was almost a decade from moving out of Gateshead before I had reason to set foot on a GNE service. Believe it or not, that was a Diamond bus. It was only a short journey, but the feel of those already quite old buses was so much lighter and brighter than what Arriva were offering at the time - all of 3 years ago, a long way prior to the Sapphire and Max launches.
It's hard not to smile at an approaching Whey Aye Five-O, while Arriva's ageing Omnicities, currently on the 21a, really don't elicit the same reaction (until they hit the A66 and the driver gets to put their foot down a bit).
And it's the branded routes that got my eldest interested in buses - and I think the same goes for a few people.
RE: Go North East: Latest News & Discussion - September 2015