(02 Apr 2023, 8:22 pm)Adrian wrote Tried the combined coast road services yesterday for the first time.

When I got there, there were a couple dozen customers waiting between the GNE and Arriva stands. A Go North East bus was already in and boarding, so I opted to wait for the Arriva 308, 5 minutes later.

Only a short journey as I was only going as far as the Corner House. Interestingly, there were 6 of us who got off at stops leading up to where I got off, despite the fact they could have opted for the bus before.

At Haymarket, there is nothing at all advertising this partnership. Nothing mentioned on the timetable, no posters up, nothing. The GNE bus I got back had a small, barely noticeable, A4 notice up. The cove panelling is instead being used to advertise the Little Coaster services that no longer exist. The Arriva bus has no such poster or anything else.

Mobile tickets also don't work on each others ticket machines. The machine honked when I tried to scan my GNE app day rover on the 308. So presumably drivers have to manually check them and therefore understand GNE's products as well as their own.

The partnership is a good thing and a long time coming. I'd love to see the same kind of thing elsewhere, but the application needs to be 100x better than this. It doesn't mean you have to hire in everyone's favourite design agency, but at least do something to promote it along the route.

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So the following needs to happen:

- Partition between stand L & M at Haymarket removed

- Promotional information at Haymarket on both stands and major stops along common sections of route

- Unified branding for vehicles which fits into Arriva's corporate livery and GNE's Cobalt & Coast or corporate livery

- Full support of mobile ticketing and T-O-T-O for both operators