(30 Mar 2022, 10:34 pm)omnicity4659 wrote When you have hundreds of mobile billboards driving around towns and cities then it makes sense to market them through route branding, however we've returned to branding for branding's sake yet again.

I've sat behind many GNE buses in the car, even as an 'enthusiast' I no longer know where a lot of their routes go - so having a Cherry bus saying "get out of the (traffic) jam" or an Xlines bus saying "posher than your car" doesn't really help...

Some good points. But the one thing to add to this, is that money can be spent on cheesy lines like we see on the 2 about raisins, currents and other types of berries or even a traditional linear map displayed instead. 
If the bus doesn't take people to the places they need to be...
Then it makes absolutely no difference.

I was driving along Chester Road in Penshaw the other night and was amazed at how many cars came from the A1231 (East or westbound - not sure which, but plenty employers either side), on to the A19 and turned right on to a Penshaw/Shiney bound A183.
The same pattern is often reversed on a morning.

I'm not aware of any buses that follow that particular traffic flow or offer viable connections, offering a comparable journey time to the one made in the car.
Instead, I see however many multi coloured buses an hour going to and from Sunderland City Centre. As though it's still 1983 and all those employers on the North side of the river still haven't built their businesses there.