(14 Sep 2015, 5:57 pm)aureolin wrote Where do you draw the line though? 

I think a corporate liveried vehicle is the better solution when a MAX spec vehicle is unavailable. The alternative would be to have a large pool of MAX spec vehicles spare, but then we'd have the problem of MAX spec vehicles on non-MAX spec routes, as they'll not let the buses sit and fester in the depot all day...

I also feel that this is a problem you get, when you start pushing features like WiFi and e-Leather seating as a 'luxury' or 'feature' of the service. WiFi should be standard on all new orders, with an attempt to retrospectively fit it to older vehicles in the fleet, if there's a business justification to do so. I've made my feelings on eLeather more than known in the past too...


Maybe we need velcro spec seats?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but there seems to be a discrepancy across eLeather seating, and I know I'm not the only enthusiast to notice this. The Sapphire spec provides the most comfortable example of eLeather in the North East in my opinion. I find MAX spec to be a bit too firm and slippy, and I find the ones in GNE's Sapphire to be like sitting on a wooden bench. It's got me a bit baffled to be honest, as I thought it was all exactly the same!

Belmont seem to have loads of Sapphire buses which are spare going round on different routes such as 1517 on the 46/48 on Saturday whilst this was on here two non Sapphire spec buses ended up out on the 22/24. Ideally there should be corporate liveried buses that have the same features as MAX and Sapphire buses so they can be used on different routes when they aren't required to fill in on a branded route such as the X12, doesn't help that each service has to require log in details and you have to register for every different service, even under the same brand.