(02 Mar 2021, 6:55 pm)streetdeckfan wrote I'd rather they get all the tinkering over and done with now before people start using the buses more. At least the people that are using the buses now *should* only be using it for essential travel so I'd guess probably already know their way around.

Surely that 'tinkering' should be network tweaks and improvements?
Get the headway/balance of services through Chester on an evening sorted, improve connections between trains and buses or buses and buses etc. The sorts of things that will surprise, impress and actually improve the passenger journey when people return after lockdown. 

Those things have got to be the ahead of all this titivating that is going on. Surely?
If they're not going to treat the important stuff as a priority, punters are just going to be going back to what they had prior - except the blind will look slightly different to before, there may be a new table inside and possibly a green leaf on the outside.

I'd imagine someone getting off a 21 in Chester and seeing they've only got 10mins to wait instead of 50mins because someone jiggled the timetables around - may be more popular than the different blind, replacement table or green leaf. 
Ditto a handful of peoole realising they can ditch the car and use the 71 to/from Seaham station and use the train without too much hanging around at the start or end of the day. The knock-on effect means seeing less cars holding up the 60 as it chugs along Stockton Road. 
Heck, fewer cars on the A19 - might mean there's less chance of one of the regular crashes and subsequent social media posts about the X9/10 being stuck in the associated road-closures.

As it is, the blinds, tables and green leaves are the talking point. I'm not sure the commercial and planning teams have used the last year as productively as they could have done.
They've had an entire year to look at the network and make the tweaks and adaptations that could benefit punters. They could have improved connections to places of employment, study & health which ultimately could take cars off the road, keep existing passengers and increase the possibility of attracting new ones. 
Instead of talking about network improvements and how passengers are going to benefit from them on their return - we are chatting about destination blinds, replacing tables, green leaves, the 28 to BChester le Street and (inevitably) Stennings designs. 
But aye, priorities... 

As a side note, I was doing some work with a toc a few years back. They realised the importance of the journey being more than just the bit where the passenger was at the station or on board. It was all the bits before and after.
All sorts of work was done on improving the 'entire' journey - from the booking experience, to getting to the station, the time at the station and subsequent connections or journeys beyond getting off the train.
Although it didn't quite come off in the end, it emphasised the importance of getting every little thing right.
If the barriers in getting to the station or from the station at the other end were too big or insermountable, there wasn't going to be passengers - regardless of how luxurious the train was or how professional the staff on-board were. 

If we apply that same theory to those needing a 78 and an X21 to get to work on a morning and look at connection times. Ditto between an X21 and 78 on an evening when they finish work, it's not too feasible of a journey. 
Tweak the 78 timetable slightly and all of a sudden it works a lot better and it's not just one person who makes the journey. There's a handful of other customers who suddenly see the viability in using public transport and realise they can get to/from work a lot quicker than they could have done in the past. Repeat that exercise across the network... 
The blind, replacement table and green leaf sort of pales in to insignificance really.

Priorities...