(11 hours ago)Andreos1 wrote It's as though the penny has finally dropped. 
Titivations and paint jobs don't attract passengers. 

On a personal level, I see a route with an X prefix and then a promotional/branded livery - I expect that route to be fast.
Using the X1 as an example, it's slower than the X5 was 20/30 years ago.

It could be argued that's because there's more cars on the road. It could be argued its because it stops in more places. 
Either way, having more stops and it being slower - contradicts the impression or expectation it's fast.
And in turn, leaves passengers disappointed when it's not fast. Probably pushing them towards the car, which slows the bus down/encourages it to call at more stops in a bid to attract passengers etc etc.

It's an odd one really, because to some extent I do believe X-Lines branding has a more premium feel and in most cases was applied to brand new vehicles so might have had some impact on attracting new passengers. 

However I would agree that choosing X- and giving the image of it being some sort of express network is false advertising for a lot of the services. Similarly, I think in the same vain as Arriva's MAX some of the features on these vehicles were considered premium at one point, when in reality it just sets a precedent as to what all vehicles should be like - why should my bus get a clapped out old banger with grotty seats when yours has nice new leather seats and isn't freezing in winter and boiling in summer. 

Go North East obviously has a history of branding but the network has been chopped and changed and brands relaunched and revamped so many times the past few years in particular, a lot of them have lost all meaning. I'd say the only ones that still have value are Angel, Crusader, Coaster and Prince Bishops. The likes of your Country Ranger and Connections 4 need to/are going and to me Voltra is making the same mistake all over again - I actually think something similar to Arriva's Hybrid Livery, standard livery with a bit of green on is more effective. Your average bus person seeing a Voltra would think hmm never heard of them it's not Go North East or Arriva (unless they take time to read the small print saying brought to you by Go North East.)

Despite all that said I don't really take issue with some or all of GNE's strategic/core routes having a specialised brand in principle. But I think they should have committed to one X-Lines-style brand for them all so not just current X-Lines but the 10, 309, 47, 56 etc as well - with a unified name maybe something relating to Newcastle or Cities or something. Having said that, branding does lead to operational issues as soon as PVR's and routes change.

We're in a world now where buses are moving towards this idea of every bus in an area being the same colour. And I do think for a non-bus user loads of different colours does make things more confusing. At this point I think the quicker they repaint all the X-Lines into standard livery, or even the odd individual route brand, the better!