See a lot of comments about the customer service team - what you have to remember is that the vast majority of customer service roles were seen as expendable when covid hit - and they got rid of a vast majority of them both in bus stations and in the customer service team themselves.

Scrap branding - have a common livery - that's all it needs.  It also takes pressure of an overworked/under-resourced engineering function.  Pre COVID it may have been a battle to win customers from the railways - now it's not.  No need for extra expense on X-Lines standards - keep the comfy seats for sure - but the rest is all just a waste of money - especially when it doesn't get fixed when it breaks as it's non-essential.

Make Metrocentre --> Newcastle a shuttle service - hell make it free - doesn't really matter - the amount of curtailed/cancelled services and cost of delayed services coming in and out of Newcastle has always been ridiculous - terminating at the metrocentre and running an airport type shuttle service would increase reliability massively.  Ok you're always going to have some oldies that will grumble - but hey you can't please everyone.

Stop treating drivers like they're the spawn of satan when they have hi-viz on show in the cab - it's really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things - this horse has been killed many times over, it's too dismembered even for pedigree chum.

Go back to pro-active rather than reactive maintenance - annual PSV shouldn't be the only time buses get real meaningful maintenance.

Stop buying parts based on the fact they're the absolute cheapest possible - replacing an ABS Sensor 3 or 4 times more often because it's a few quid cheaper is a false economy.

Actually support drivers and protect them from abusive punters - instead of saying 'there's nothing we can do' and expecting them to put up with it.

Rotas not designed by someone who hasn't a clue, and who frequently buggers off on holiday as soon as they hit the depots before anyone has a chance to feed the glaring errors back.

Employee forums/you said we did has been done before - same with surveys - they only even pick out the parts they think makes them look good, they never actually serve any meaningful purpose to the vast majority of employees.  They're more often than not a tick box exercise - smarmy responses from management in numbers, saying one thing, promising others, and then doing the exact opposite down the line.

There are reasons drivers are leaving - and it's not just natural churn or the effect of COVID exclusively.