To route brand or not to route brand?

This is a matter that nearly all transport companies face. What is the best way to market your brand? Sainsbury's and Tesco think they have perishable items in the form of their apples and pears but in transport we have something much more perishable ... the seat.

Once you've set off from that stop, you can't re-sell that seat. The opportunity has gone. One way to increase revenue is to provide a good company-wide brand which then can be used for day tickets, weekly tickets and the like. Guaranteed money regardless of which bus they catch. You're already up whatever the passenger wishes to do. The big boys of First, Stagecoach and Arriva have been ruthless in the past at a standard livery across not only a depot but the UK (and in some cases abroad) providing uniformity which although boring to the enthusiasts does satisfy what these businesses require - bums on seats.

Then the issue of route branding rears its head. Interworking on buses is a major thing (buses working different route numbers) and it would be impossible in busy depots to allocate a route-branded bus on that service only. Some argue that route branding simply serves as free advertising but in reality passengers see this as confusion and don't read the destination display. So what is the way forward?

Fare information is very helpful, especially if it's a good deal. However some operators are using their destination indicators (if they are scrolling LEDs) to use this as the opportunity to display this information. No. By all means use vinyls but the route number and destination (and via points if required) should be the only thing on the indicator. As you may note, I haven't used the term 'destination blind' as this is incorrect for an LED display.

First have just taken delivery of new Streetdecks for their X78 Sheffield-Doncaster route which will not feature any branding but will be in a different colour scheme. Is this a change of policy from First who have been known to do some truly awful schemes which blacked out windows with pictures of people looking gormless and amazed by what the service has to offer.

We have to look to the good people (sorry the very good people) of TrentBarton for inspiration here who have batted away creating separate brands for services and have a very high success rate of allocating branded vehicles to routes along with a spare 'pool' of buses for when the full compliment is not available. 

Yes, by all means brand up a route but if you're going to, think about the wider implications of it. Just because you know your 83-branded bus is working a 14, don't assume your customers haven't noticed what's on your shiny LED. Passengers can be very stupid at times and we need to look through the eyes of that stupidity to help us provide the ultimate aim which is to get people out of the car.

It's no good spending a fortune on branding and then bugger it up by sticking it on the wrong route, or not taking into account the interworking.