(12 Nov 2014, 8:47 pm)Dan wrote Well, AVL should certainly bring Go North East up to the standard set by Stagecoach... Not so sure where the idea about Arriva North East having a great presence on Social Media has come from? I think I'm right in suggesting that all of Arriva's Customer Service departments are based in Luton; as such, this frequently leads to Arriva making mistakes (even if it is just the spelling of locations) and also leads to misunderstanding with regards to locations (ie reference to a pub within a location instead of a specific timing point on a timetable)... Conversely, Go North East and Stagecoach employ local staff who have a greater knowledge of the region, and make fewer mistakes...
Interestingly, the Social Media representative for Arriva appears to use their mobile phone to see and reply to queries (which appears to have led to a 'typo'!). See this post.

Agree with your posts regarding Windows Phone; however, I think cost will be prohibitive. The cost to develop a mobile phone application on another platform will impact on the viability of doing so, especially when you're only providing it for what could potentially be 9% of customers.

The reference to the standard set by Stagecoach and Arriva was more so in reference to their live reporting. Arriva choose to do this by giving their users direct access to AVL, and Stagecoach actively report on this throughout the day. That's the standard I'm referring to where I say I feel GNE will exceed it.

On app development, the cost can often be nominal. Of course, just because 9% of the smart-phone market share in the UK is the Windows Phone, it doesn't mean that's 9% of GNE's customers.  I note that their website uses Google Analytics, so someone has access to exactly what share of their customers are trying to contact them, using a Windows Phone. Could be well over the 9%, or well below. I'd love to see it developed either way mind.