(08 Mar 2018, 7:51 pm)Andreos1 wrote GNE's Mercedes Citaro's.

Appreciate we won't see them on an open forum like this, but to compare and contrast further, I would love to see how numbers have improved/declined once cascades started and Merc's appeared on the various other Riverside, Deptford and then Stanley services.
To see cheaper, lighweight vehicles appear on the Stanley and Deptford routes would indicate to me that the 'Merc factor' has worn off. 
However, I think that would be too easy an assumption to make. Particularly in the fuel saving, BSOG obsessed, penny pinching era we are living in now.

When they first appeared on the scene, and bear in mind I was only about 10 at the time so my memory is a bit hazy, I seem to recall there was a big push into the fact that these were Mercedes, both for driver recruitment and service advertisement. I don't remember any similar publicity when they were cascaded. 

Mercedes to the general public screams premium quality and reliability.

For example, at the time, Arriva Northumbria were still operating a strong fleet of Scania single decks. We know that they were ridiculously good vehicles, yet if you offered the 'average' customer a ride home in a Merc or a Scania, there'd only ever be one winner.