(09 Sep 2013, 12:47 pm)AdamY wrote I agree. 99% of bus users probably do just want the bus to turn up (on time) and are happy when it does. But if this is the case, why go all gimmickry with branding featuring promises of WiFi enabled buses? Once you start advertising services promising some sort of competitive advantage over other similar services, then these promises should really be kept as some may choose these services based upon what's being offered. Unless there's a valid reason due to vehicles being off the road, GNE should strive to deliver their end of the bargain. If they don't, then it's tantamount to false advertising which become legally ambiguous.
The percentage of passengers that don't care about additional features such as Wi-Fi and power sockets for mobile phones/laptops is not relevant in my opinion - it is the percentage that do care.
ASDA stock various "own brand" chocolate bars - milk chocolate, white chocolate and dark chocolate to name just three. If a bar of white chocolate is wrapped in milk chocolate packaging, the customer expects milk chocolate - not white chocolate. They are essentially promised that their product will contain milk chocolate. There are some customers that their chocolate bar has been packaged incorrectly (and they are likely to be the people that just picked the first bar up), but there are other customers that would care - they may prefer milk chocolate to white.
You could then turn this argument to also include Sainsburys' own brand chocolate bars so that it was similar to the X84/685 argument.
Surely the above applies to Go North East's "Tynedalexpress" X84 on Sundays? Passengers are promised free Wi-Fi on the X84; their timetable would suggest that they would receive just that, rather than being allocated an older, smaller vehicle which does not have high back seating or free Wi-Fi. Because there is no documentation that states what the vehicle allocation will be on Sundays, passengers should expect an orange bus to turn up with all of the features as they're promised. It costs passengers the same amount of money to travel on Sundays, so why should they not receive the benefits Monday - Saturday passengers do?
The consultation results Aureolin provided a link to proves that customers do care about having these additional features. A total of 260 completed questionnaires were returned to Go North East. 54% of those customers were in favour of the new "Tyne Tees Xpress" vehicles to have free Wi-Fi, which is 140 people - but apparently only 1% care about having these features? A further 32% were in favour of adding power sockets to the new buses. Again, a massive difference between the official number and the earlier number given (although it was likely to be under-exaggerated anyway, providing that is a word?)
Go North East certainly wouldn't plan to have the Red Arrows, Angels, TENs, TTXs off-road and have them worked by something smaller that can't deliver the features that are promised, so why should the X84 be any different?