(21 Dec 2016, 10:58 pm)Ambassador wrote Your pass should have been a reduced rate if it makes you feel better.

GNEs policy is just greedy and unnecessary. The responses on Facebook have been appalling, usual rank awful customer service. I'd genuinely like to know if the MD can look at those responses and be happy and proud of his staff and the direction they work under. I've worked at many FTSE companies, way bigger than Go Ahead and seen Customer Service Directors hauled over coals and arse kicked for better service than GNE give.


Still, monopoly, they can do what they want. If only we had a regulator with some teeth on ticketing issues.

What makes this particularly hard is the amount of counsils involved in the regulation.
You have DCC, Newcasle County Counsil, Gateshead Counsil, North Tyneside Counsil, South Tyneside Counsil, Unitary Authorities (Hartlepool/M'bro) and Northumberland County Counsil.
To come up with some sensible restrictions, you need counsil monitoring - which is impossible given the number of different counsils which will all have their own take on what should be done. After all, companies like GNE satisfy the counsils by providing all of the contracts which have their own restrictions. There is certainly price ammendments made by these contracts - just there is no way to bridge the different counsil's regulations into one central monitoring system. Here's a made up example..

Say DDC, Gateshead Counsil and Newcastle City Counsil (the latter under nexus) agree to join together to make route X70 more affordable.
£1 to the boundery from Consett -> Crookgate, £1 to Newcastle from there. Nexus and Go North East then look at the figures and realise that not nearly enough people are getting on the Bus in or through T&W to make ends meet. Nexus then decide that the prices can be put up allow the leg of the journey to be economically plausable for both operator and nexus itself. So the price then shifts up to £1.50 to go from Crookgate to Gateshead. Are DCC going to then reduce the price of their share of the route? No, because that's going to mess with their figures and contracts. The price - one end to the other is going to be £2.50.

I may be talking utter.. uhm... nonsense with my example, and indeed all of this, but this is how I picture it with contracts involved.

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