(30 Oct 2023, 6:12 pm)Rob44 wrote its as if GNE management don't have a clue what they are doing???

(30 Oct 2023, 6:38 pm)Andreos1 wrote Well it has been questioned on here many, many times and with all of the numbers and evidence seeming to back that up...
Members on here could be correct in their thinking.

On the contrary. I think they've known exactly what they're doing. 

When the rationalisation project really went full throttle in the mid-2000s, it was almost a carbon copy of the LEAN methodology that multi-nationals and the public sector like to buy in to. Claims to be customer focused, but in reality it's about business optimisation, cost-reduction, getting full utilisation out of the workforce and other resources, and maximising profit. 

In the short-term, it probably worked very well, in that everything was focused on a smaller portfolio of profitable routes, with the lesser profitable being carved away at over the next five years or so, in an attempt to maintain that profit baseline. It's probably after that point that things started to completely lose direction. The architect of that project leaving, then being ran without real direction for years after that. When they should have been continuously improving (as LEAN would put it), they were instead resorting to rearranging the deckchairs; e.g. North Sunderland estates. 

Everyone's favourite Best Impressions enthusiast then took over the helm for a short while. He gets more criticism than probably warrants, but at least he tried to take steer with a positive outlook and grow the business; say what you want about the cheap fares, Xlines, coaches on the X10 etc, but it was the kind of bold thinking we'd been missing for the past decade, though he was dealt a pretty poor hand with COVID. 

I've no doubt there's still some bold thinkers and people full of ideas over at Bensham, but like in any organisation, those talents are wasted when they're harboured behind clowns like Featham and Maxfield.