(14 Jul 2024, 3:12 pm)Washingtonian wrote I think the only services that should remain branded are the express services and the ones with a 15 minute frequency or higher. The rest of the branding should be binned completely and the remaining fleet should be repainted into the corporate livery.
I might be tempted to have a slight variation of the current corporate livery for the minibus services and brand them all "Little Links" or something instead of painting them all different colours and having different names. I liked how they done something similar in the Go-Ahead Northern red and white era with the "Minilink" brand. They were more or less in the same corporate livery but with a slight variation. Also I've kept saying this for a while now but I think GNE should invest in the smaller minibuses/breadvans such as these: - https://www.busandcoachbuyer.com/road-te...to-sprint/ Surely this size of vehicle will be much better to use on an evening and for the areas where the roads are narrow and tight. I've been watching the night time loadings on the Little Pinks etc and there are times that the loadings do not even justify the use of a solo, however these bus services are still vital to some. Instead of cutting more services in the future they should buy some breadvans such as the Mercedes Sprinter that is much smaller and narrower and will ultimately use less fuel. Also it might enable the company to use less vehicles and drivers and save them money without dropping the standards and level of service.
Get your sentiments but I have to politely disagree. Breadvans are horrid vehicles from a passenger point of view and you really need to have some form of standard.
Personally I'd rather see these minibus routes extended beyond Washington. People can say the hub and spoke model works, but it doesn't really. People will not change at Washington from one bus to another bus when there's no guaranteed connections. Trains and Metros they will because of the speed benefit though.
I'm not aware of any other country which does conventional bus to bus integration like Washington does but then again Washington would have a rail link if this was Europe.
Oh and there's capacity requirements for subsidised routes which the bread vans won't meet, regardless.
Edit just had a look at these timetables since the England match is boring.
X1 Arrives Washington Galleries 23.40
85 Leaves Washington Galleries 23.36
Absolutely fantastic timetabling that mind.