(25 Nov 2014, 11:14 am)Dan wrote Idiot, I agree with parts of your post...
Go North East is not stupid: this is why the company planned to undertake a consultation, enabling them to gather feedback from customers. As Andreos1 has correctly stated; without customers, there is no business. This is why it is vital for all bus operators to carry out some form of consultation when planning service changes - the best method to do this can be debated.
Go North East is carrying out changes to services which have strong competition from Stagecoach - would management really risk planning a poor consultation on purpose, when their customers could potentially go to the competition if the changes made leave them worse off?
As I have already suggested - the proposed changes are far from confirmed at this stage. Indeed, I understand there is an upcoming meeting with senior management and local councillors as well as Nexus to discuss the proposed changes, and how they would affect (positively or negatively) residents in Sunderland. Local councillors have prevented proposed service changes going ahead in the past - a (fairly) recent example would of course be the X3 service. Without wishing to spark a debate about this particular service, Go North East attempted to withdraw service X3 and replace it with service X36 quite some time ago, though local councillors insisted that it was vital to keep this service as it was well used by the residents of Boldon. Of course, the service has now been withdrawn, but this followed on from a low frequency service which was designed to work around scholars and keep costs down...
If local councillors kick up a fuss again this time, it is unlikely that the proposed service changes will go ahead in January. Another set of proposals will have to be created which meet the needs (or wants) of local councillors and Nexus as well as Go North East. If local councillors are happy that the changes will benefit the residents of Sunderland, the VOSA registrations will be submitted soon after the meeting takes place ready to become operational in late January.
It would be silly of a company to go into a customer consultation about service changes if they had nothing in mind whatsoever. As Andreos1 has correctly stated; Go North East would have devised a business plan for these service changes, including how this would benefit customers, how the fleet disposition would be affected, and how the paint plan would have to be altered accordingly. These things can take anywhere up to a period of three months to plan effectively; whilst I'm not suggesting that it has taken that amount of time on this occasion, it could well have done for all any of us know.
I don't think anyone could have correctly predicted how poor the consultation for this set of service change proposals has turned out. Whilst the majority of members on this forum have been cynical right from the start, suggesting that the company had already made up its mind with these changes, this is just not the case. The company has gone to the cost of printing posters to pin up on-board Deptford-based buses, the cost of printing feedback forms (which actually didn't seem to be handed out yesterday), and the time of allocating members of staff to spend eight hours based in Park Lane Interchange to talk with passengers. Face-to-face consultations had the potential to be massively beneficial to customers, if they were undertaken in the right way. Sadly, from what I witnessed yesterday, it does not seem that this consultation has been particularly effective. As I have already suggested - perhaps Go North East will go back to the drawing board and look for an alternative means of carrying out a consultation in future, instead of wasting time and resources which could have been spent more wisely.
I feel somewhat obliged to point out that we've seen a gradual lowering of input from Go North East employees on this forum over the past few months. I imagine that unwarranted posts which have continuously portrayed the company in a bad light have contributed to their departure from this forum. This forum was originally a great source of information for news and upcoming changes, though 'insider knowledge' is now incredibly limited. Perhaps if our relationship had not tarnished with our 'insiders' from Go North East, we could have had a clear understanding of what the company had planned, and given our views accordingly for this to potentially alter what the company had planned, but this will certainly not happen now. Whilst everyone on this forum is entitled to an opinion, and free to post their opinions on the public domain, repetitive and infelicitous posts should be avoided if it is going to make the information on this forum more and more limited. As enthusiasts, we all want to be 'kept in the loop', so I can't stress enough that I feel it's terribly important for us to not make a continuous flow of negative posts which portray the company in a bad light, and instead, make an attempt to see the good in some situations. The sun may not shine out of Go North East's exhaust pipe, but I think we all need to learn not to be blinded by our ignorance, which might enable me (and others) to stop making posts to provide the counter-argument...
If a representative from the company feels as though the comments about the company are wrong or factually incorrect - then surely they can report them?
If the representative from the company feels the comments about the company do have weight, do have merit or there is something behind the posts - then surely they can act on them?
If the representative is bored and no longer wishes to comment - then no matter how much back patting or ego massaging they get, then they will leave. One commented on how much he loved to troll a certain member on here.
One insider (BFK?) was pilloried when he admitted that the Renown with the dodgy reverse select was allocated to the 2a/c - when umpteen posters prior had identified the other routes it could have operated on, without the need to select reverse.
Whilst I have no idea whether it was related, he seemed to disappear/vanish soon after this.
Should people not comment or pass judgement incase an insider decides to no longer post?
Whilst appreciative of insider information, I don't think the board should withhold genuine and fair comment - 'just in-case'.
Remember, it works both ways and one or two insiders have dished out quite a bit towards members on here - some of it unwarranted, untrue and uncalled for.