(01 Mar 2020, 4:50 pm)Dan wrote Maybe I'm biased then, as I disagree. There are numerous articles online which attribute improving customer experience, by way of more premium specification features on-board buses, to revenue growth.
A couple of Arriva examples, admittedly in the trade press a few years old now, are below:
https://cbwmagazine.com/arriva-goes-max/
https://www.busandcoachbuyer.com/arriva-...re-growth/
In my opinion; providing a reliable bus service that goes to the places its users want to go to, maintains revenue. Operators have to do more to protect that revenue and grow it. Schemes such as Arriva's 'Sapphire' and 'MAX' - and more recently Go North East's 'X-lines' - aim to provide a better customer experience for the operators' passengers, with the view of boosting revenue.
Sadly merely maintaining existing passenger numbers and/or revenue is not sustainable. Bus operators' costs rise every year with employees' pay rises alone. That's before you consider other factors, such as fuel, insurance, etc. Operators need to do something more than provide a basic bus service to increase patronage to make this affordable, and I'd argue investing in new buses and refurbishing existing buses with better features, definitely contribute to doing this.
Clearly some operators see no other alternative but to reduce service levels in order to reduce costs and in turn maintain profit levels. This is a last resort, I'm sure, as operators know that reducing service levels will see a reduction in passenger numbers and hence revenue.
I imagine what customers ultimately want is a bus service that is reliable, frequent and at low fares. Things like WiFi, USBs etc are nice to have, but I think the most important thing is the actual atmosphere on buses now.
5-10 years ago you had dimly lit buses, majority of which had traditional bench seats or low back individual seating. It wasn't an awful place to be, but by no means was it overly pleasant. Contrast that to what we're seeing now - better lit saloons, more comfortable seating, more reliable heating systems, NSAs, fewer rattles, CCTV so typically less vandalism. High specs, such as WiFi and USBs will then help when people are on the bus too.
I don't live on any GNE routes, but I know when Arriva launched their Sapphire routes they heavily marketed them with leaflets through doors containing free day tickets and timetables - getting people back onto the buses for free one time, then the simplicity of bus travel now combined with a pleasant atmosphere likely brings them back.