I too agree that in terms of quality the VG Wrights model is by far and away the best in the fleet, and I was on a number of EV's and VG's last weekend before making my mind up on this. There are areas the VG needs improving, but for me they are solid and stylish and do a lot for the image of the company. EV's are very rattly and the interiors appear brittle.

I must take issue with the point about the AW's. I liked travelling on them every once in a while as they were different, but I think they are up there with the worst body DB ever bought in terms of rattles, and think they were poorly built. I take the point on the WV's being more the fault of Volvo, but I would blame Wrights for the issues with the AW's for sure.

I think DB don't view public transport the same way as TFL for example, who clearly have different values and beliefs of what a public transport system needs to be. I think DB have done a lot to clean the fleet in recent times (interiors maintained, damage fixed, and external maintenance done regularly) which would doubtless attract more people. I think you need to do an extensive study to see if in fact a more upmarket service will attract more people. The short answer is "yes", but how many? Maybe not a whole heap. On the other hand, look at Swords bus. I always earmarked that as one I thought would not work, but here we are four years on, and yes, there are a lot of people that want to travel on a top class coach non stop to Swords on a regular basis rather than on the equivalent DB route, and are prepared to pay the premium, even today.

If anything, maybe DB need to consider "Dublin Bus Gold" or something like that. A few express services, which run VWD standard (or higher) express services to busy places in Dublin (for example Dun Laoghaire) via a bus corridor and charge more. I think that could attract a whole new group. Xpresso has never been done right by DB, it was premium price for almost the same service. If DB ran a bus from Knocklyon for example (route 15 territory) each morning at about 8AM out the M50, right at the N4, into Heuston and up the Quays in the bus lane all the way the journey time would be 35 minutes or so. On a nice bus I think it would be mobbed. Charge €5/6 return. Could you come up with 20 of those routes citywide? I'd say so