(16 Sep 2023, 10:15 am)Fleetmaster wrote I drive all over County Durham and Northumberland for work, and have been quite surprised at how effective a bland corporate livery is in making sure I have absolutely no interest in where these buses go anymore.
I just see numbers, and they don't mean anything, not least since it is not a given that the number 52 you saw in one remote village is the same one you saw a few towns over. The uniformity is even worse given there are now only a few vehicle types in use, the length and frequency much less the traffic type being no determinant to what turns up in in bland red. Not that the paying punter should really have to become a bus nerd to be able to comprehend the utility of the network.
The real tragedy is, given how many of GNEs routes actually travel vast distances while still somehow finding the time to call in at assorted nooks and crannies, it is exactly where route branding would make sense.
London uses route branding too btw, when it is trying to grow new markets and transform travel habits. That was of course the whole damn point of branding the GNE fleet in the first place.
The few times I've been to that London I've been surprised how bland and sterile the public transport is.
Perhaps that's what the bland and sterile people of the south like, but up here in the friendly north I vastly prefer the bright and colourful liveries and friendly next stop announcements we have.