(14 Mar 2015, 6:53 pm)Dan wrote As someone who loves branding and the benefits to both customers (and to a degree, the bus operators themselves, if branding assists in increasing the amount of passengers who use a service), the downsides to "Sapphire" and "MAX" are beginning to show as more and more services are converted to this specification. The issue I have is the inconsistencies between each "MAX" service, for example. The half-hearted refurbishments mean that you can step off one "MAX" specification service and onto another and the specification is completely different. I completely understand the reason why they're not having a full refurbishment as, at the rate of these services being converted, the cost would be huge, but when the presentation of the fleet is improving vastly, it's a shame attention to detail is lacking. As "MAX" is set up primarily for interurban services, wouldn't you expect high backed seating as standard, providing customers with a more superior level of comfort than a standard specification service? Sadly, Arriva is not providing high backed seating on all "MAX" services.
Features of "Sapphire" and "MAX" are being cherry-picked and placed on to standard specification services. Power sockets (on Durham's ADL Enviro200s), Wi-Fi (on many standard specification services), Next Stop Announcements (on some of Darlington's Pulsars), leather seats (on a number of vehicles), etc. This is another of my gripes.
Perhaps it's just me being picky and maybe "ordinary" customers wouldn't give a toss, but I think there's room for improvement. It'd be good if Arriva could start learning from their mistakes.
I know we've discussed this before, and you know my feelings on it. If you're going to have a prestige group of services, i.e. 'Sapphire' or a brand you're going to promote separately, i.e. 'MAX', then attention to detail should always be key. As soon as you start cutting corners, then you lose the value of the brand.
When I was down Darlington early on in the year, I used the X66 for the first time since the MAX refurbishment. I honestly can't believe that someone has let those Omnicities out of the workshop with that horrific green flooring and panelling. It doesn't go with the seats whatsoever, and stands out like a sore thumb. I even notice on the newly refurbed Pulsars for the X12/X2, that the plastics on the seat stand out a mile, because to me they're the wrong colour (Teal plastics, with a navy body and light blue headrest). I'd be surprised if it cost much more to respray the seat plastics, and that panel right at the back. Doing that the same colour as the headrest would make a huge difference in my opinion. I think there's a few GNE MPDs that had their seat fabrics replaced, but not the seat plastics? Stands out like a sore thumb, and a massive difference to the majority, which quite rightly had the plastics colour coordinated.
On board features should be a standard across the brand. Similar to how GNE operated their 'Gold Standard' policy. For me, and for the brands to both stand out, I feel they should include the following as standard: White LED destinations (all round), Free WiFi and NSAs. Sapphire should retain the current high back eLeather seating, but I feel MAX should have something similar to Stagecoach's coach seating on the Carlisle-Newcastle E300s. If it's a long interurban route, then the comfort should be there. The standard high back seats don't provide that, and I wouldn't want to be sat on one longer than half an hour really. A criticism I initially had with the TTX B9s too.
(14 Mar 2015, 7:20 pm)mb134 wrote I've gave up with Arriva customer service to be honest, even if I did raise it I'm nearly 100% sure that I'd get a "we'll pass your comments on to the depot manager" and see nothing done about it. They don't care at all, and I can't wait until I can learn to drive so that I don't have to get their late, cold and disappointing buses every morning.
The management of Ashington must be the worst (except maybe Redcar, although it seems that they've improved), the allocation is shocking, the drivers clearly don't care about being on time, and the presentation of the vehicles is terrible. Now I know there will be exceptions, some drivers seem to do everything to ensure they're on time for example. So even if customer services do pass on my comments, I highly doubt Ashington will do anything to rectify it, as it seems they just don't care.
Email everything through rather than using the web form, and request a written response. Gives you a record of things. Keep doing it though.