(17 May 2022, 12:13 am)Ambassador wrote With no disrespect intended…to what point does a website or app attract passengers? Outside of ye olde North East most areas have moved onto contactless and away from operator bound apps. The GNE website by the way is dreadful unless you can navigate the many puff piece news articles.
and branding….I mean if anything proves branding is an unmitigated disaster it’s these changes.
The new GNE website and app are complete and utter shite, the only advantage the new website brought was live tracking, and lost what was arguably the most important thing, the price calculator. Something which MG promised to bring back two years ago, yet is still nowhere to be seen. So much for it being 'in the works'!
The new 'simplified' fares are great... if you're a mind reader. They say the 'summer fares' were staying with some price changes, yet don't mention what the price changes are, and to add to the confusion they still have the old fares on the site.
I still think they should have a renewed focus on either The Key, or integrating the Pop card into their ticketing. Smart cards are, in my eyes, far more convenient and reliable than an app, and I'd imagine are probably quicker in terms of boarding as well. Maybe it's just my phone, but I have to faff about trying to get the QR code to actually pick up, to the point where I've just gone back to a paper ticket as it scans much better.
I'm not sure if they still have the issue, but in the past the machine would get confused because it sometimes activated Google Pay when I was trying to scan the app. If that hasn't been resolved, that could be a bit of an issue with the evening tickets only requiring a card to be tapped on the reader