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(26 Jul 2019, 11:22 pm)Jimmi wrote When Sapphire was launched it seemed to be more of a big deal as Arriva North East hadn't really had any buses with WiFi, e-leather seats or charging ports of any form prior to the introduction of Sapphire on service 7 back in late 2013 (only X66 coaches and Durham Park &amp; Rides had WiFi pre Sapphire IIRC), over time more routes went Sapphire and then MAX came along with Sapphire still being the 'premium' offering for a while but later the MAX spec basically became the same minus the next stop announcements although Darlington MAX buses gained NSAs due to council requests or something. Now Sapphire and standard is more or less the same spec apart from being a different colour inside and out and no NSAs although Temsas haven't gained WiFi or USBs in their recent refurbs. I would say at this stage Sapphire, MAX &amp; Frequenta is just a brand in the same sense as 'Angel' or 'Castles Express' is to GNE to some extents although personally I feel it is somewhat better to have a pretty standard spec for all routes and brands like GNE are doing.&nbsp;

</p><p><br></p><p>Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that when Sapphire launched they were trying to make it all premium, with the drivers having different uniforms, and being trained to be polite&nbsp;etc. but they seemed to give up on that plan pretty quickly. Like you say, it's just become a brand, except unlike GNE's they don't really serve a purpose</p>