(06 Feb 2026, 5:49 pm)robisdave4554 wrote The idea of route and service branding works - short term. Almost inevitably ideas come and go and vehicles get moved to operate different touted and from different depots. The only way it can work long term is for vehicles to be dedicted to and remain there. The way Arriva is moving vehicles around presently and the expected intakes of new fleet should demonstrate this.
See I always think it's a bad idea personally, especially with a network like Arriva's as it means buses are fixed on a route or are off brand.
I'm not sure what happens down in Teesside but up in Blyth and Ashington if buses are late coming in, they're just swapped around to get things back on time; it's better than what happens at GNE imo where things are cut short, or one bus is 15 minutes late and there's another bus from the same depot just sitting there doing nothing because it's 'the wrong brand'.
Secondly for something like the X4, if the 63 ends up getting Evora's aswell; you've got a situation where there's 8 of them getting rat arsed over the hills every day and the other ones are just sitting around doing easy routes all day - another serious issue with GNE really. It's much better for one day it'll do the 63, then the next day it does the X4 and repeat.
