(04 Mar 2016, 10:16 pm)G-CPTN wrote When you get significantly different liveries running the same route (Arriva, Stagecoach, GNE orange and GNE red and GNE Tynedale links yellow on the '85' route to Newcastle from Hexham) the average passenger doesn't consider that they represent different operators.
It's only when they try to board with a return ticket issued by a different operator (and get refused) that they get confused.
Oh! and the confusion was there when Arriva and Stagecoach were the sole operators of the 685 - back then the tickets weren't transferable (I believe that they are now).
Passengers stand at a stop and look at the destination blind - if it reads what they expect to see then it's 'their bus'.
We had that problem in Low fell, back in the late 90s/early noughties, between Arriva and Go ahead northern.