Nothing will change. First's bus operation appears to be in serious decline, they shunned their roots a long time ago with the statement that they were now 'a train operator who also run buses' or something similar, and the current franchise headache and loss of WestCoast has done them no favours at all. Shares were well over £3 just a couple of years or so back, they're about half that now.
Firstgroup and it's bus division are a prime example of an outfit who invest far too much effort in gloss and publicity and not nearly enough towards what they actually do. There is much corporate propaganda trying to convince everybody that they are a market leader, whilst many users would suggest that this is simply not the case, and indeed the company is completely failing to address the problems with the product on offer. There's no avoiding the harsh reality that First's bus offerings are universally poor. The scruffy, dirty, badly turned out vehicles that have become the hallmark of their operations speak volumes; the attitude is very much one of a company who have a captive market and know it, and therefore seemingly feel no need to put any degree of effort into anything beyond doing the bare minimum. From time to time there will be a big glossy 'event', for example the 'ftr' concept which was launched with massive hype as the future of bus travel. It died a slow and painful death, helped on it's way by the lackluster running of the whole project (on-board ticket machines which didn't work properly, use of standard buses on supposed 'ftr' services, poor provision of traffic priority, etc). A few years prior to that First were preaching of how they had decided that nobody wanted to ride on double decker buses any more and they were sparking a bendy bus revolution. That fell on it's backside too, ending up with batches of expensive vehicles roaming the country trying to find a fleet manager who would have them. The latest happening is the new colour scheme, with it's incredible concept of incorporating local place names - or 'branding', as every other operator has called it for the past 15 years or so. Give it a little while and the branding will slowly dissapear as vehicles are reallocated around the empire and depots lose interest in paying for and applying enormous vinyls every time.
The new livery - not the most pleasing I've ever seen - will not fix the fundamental problem with Firstgroup's mentality of pushing glossy leaflets and hoping nobody notices the reality. The top brass need to stop believing their own hype and take a look at how much better the competition is.
