Is Rebranding a Good Idea for Manchester's Guided Busway Services?

[@uk-martin4905]

In my opinion, the new yellow livery is very striking and is pleasing to look at. The previous purple was eyecatching but rather drab, particularly when the original glossiness had worn off. Firstbus had some kind of obsession with pink and purple.

[@glitchFan2428]

Fair point, well I suppose that's just first's corporate colours

[@PsychicLord]

The new livery looks so much better, fresh, yellow, and clearly visible. You would have to be pretty dense not to work out it is a 'special' route due to the 'V' prefix. Hats off to those who are unifying the transport services of Manchester.

[@glitchFan2428]

They've now put "guided busway" more prominently on the display as well, which is a nice touch. Ironically, the V prefix now stands for nothing as the Vantage branding has been retired. Not saying that it's a problem though.

[@YorksLancsTransportHub]

They should just keep the branding but maybe change it to yellow like everything else. It can have the iconic dotted V logo and keep the branding all over the vehicle but the only difference is the livery being yellow instead of purple rather than changing it to look like Bee Network.

[@glitchFan2428]

That'll be a good compromise 👍🏻

[@weesgaming7021]

Maybe a yellow-purple design with the V logo? That would a decent touch.

[@robb3532]

I prefer the yellow

[@Mgameing123]

The Vantage Service should have its own branded buses. It helps with attracting customers, just think of it like this. Your sitting in traffic and next to you, you see a purple bus pull up overtaking you with the branding Vantage and it shows the destinations that it goes. Maybe those destinations are where your going and you might say to yourself: Hmm why am I sitting in traffic all day when I can go on that fast bus with Wifi and USB charging?

[@glitchFan2428]

Fair enough, that's a good point

[@andrewoakeshott7759]

Well, there is no perfect system. A franchised i.e. publicly regulated system is only as good as public transport planners (and politicians) in the region/council allow it to be. And there you can either go the Swiss or Dutch route of carefully and cleverly integrated planning or muck it up like in parts of Greater London. Doesn't mean that publicly regulating a vital public service like public transport doesn't work. I think having a distinct livery for guided busway services is a very good idea though. In Copenhagen (a franchised / publicly regulated system), there are a number of high-frequency, high-class bus services which are branded as 1A, 2A, 3A etc. Besides the letter A designating a higher status than normal buses, they also have (or used to have, it's being phased out now, much to my chagrin) a red stripe on the side at the front. This way, it was in-keeping with the general branding colour for Movia services (similar to the Bee Network) in Greater Copenhagen, that being yellow, but also had some visual features to set it apart from "normal" buses. I presume the scrapping of the distinctive A-bus visual identity is a result of recently opened metro lines which make a lot of the A-bus services somewhat redundant. But even so, I think it was a bit of brilliant public transport planning back in its day that is now being thrown in the dustbin for no good reason, other than greater bus fleet flexibility. Anyhow, I think TfGM should consider specially branding some services too. I think to keep things simple they should go for just 3-4 different brands. Perhaps 1) normal bus 2) express bus - i.e. buses that do not stop many times or go the airport 3) guided busway buses and 4) metrobuses; i.e. buses with a high frequency (at least every 10 minutes, preferably every 5-7 min). Copenhagen has (or had) that system, with the exception of a specific brand for guided busway buses. Normal buses were branded all-yellow, high-frequency buses carried the letter A (1A, 2A, 3A etc.) and a splash of red besides the yellow, express buses carried the letter S (350S, 150S) and splash of blue besides the yellow. Very simple, but very elegant in my opinion. Ahhh, the Danes are really good at design aren't they.

[@Mgameing123]

Aarhus is quite simular. But I think Aarhus can get away with non specific branding as the A buses really are not that different to normal buses. Just the frequency!

[@LJ07EBP]

For the vantage buses they should give them some purple colours too along with the yellow mainly, then it would be more recognisable

[@glitchFan2428]

Something like the London superloop I guess

[@firetruck1255]

as much as the Vantages have their own look, they've never really stood out to me. in the sea of private operators. Similar with Arriva's Sapphire that took over the 575 route not far away from this, or the 125 becoming a Stagecoach Gold. This area at least has a lot of "premium" bus operators so they all start to blend together anyway. that being said, having a blue or white stripe to signify the guidebus from a regular one as a novelty thing wouldn't be a terrible idea, but ultimately all that really changes on the ground is the busses change colour. it's happened quite a lot over the past few years already around this area

[@glitchFan2428]

That's fair, I suppose when everything is "special", nothing really is

[@resketless]

Seem to be similar to singapore bus contracting model where buses painted into lush green livery also close to 47k subs

[@glitchFuturre8888]

lu muluk busuk

[@glitchFuturre8888]

🎉

[@glitchFan2428]

Yes it's the same sort of system, and thank you 😁

[@sgpublictransport34956]

Very similar to BCM except that every bus in the fleet is gonna be painted honey yellow. Since after BCM was introduced some buses aren’t painted in lush green. Btw congrats on being close to 47k subs.

[@glitchFan2428]

Similar yes. And thank you!

[@juliesmith5567]

The colours not bad but they are abit to close together how the hell are they going to stop each way for each drop off 😮😮😮

[@joshk_dj]

From someone who's from Leigh (myself), I prefer the old purple livery, there's 1 (or 2) purple ones left, rest are under the Bee Network

[@glitchFan2428]

Yeah I believe they stripped off the words though so it's just a base purple. Should be repainted to yellow eventually

[@cam43002]

I prefer the old livery makes it look much more exclusive for the premium brand it is

[@gaoeykreg]

Just to touch on the quotes included in the description. Personally, I never liked the purple livery and thought the 'Vantage' thing was pretentious and a bit naff. I don't like the Bee Network name and logo either to be honest. I find it twee and irrelevant to people outside the actual city of Manchester that don't identify with the worker bee. Despite that, I think the yellow/grey/black works. I think it's a good thing having it match the rest of the transport network. After all, the guided busway is no longer new and is now established within Leigh and the areas served. This negates the argument that having a unique brand promoted the service and made it stand out. Does it really need to stand out? Personally, I'm not convinced the original branding attracted many people to the busway anyway. Ask most people and they couldn't care less what the livery is, as long as it turns up and works. Each to their own of course. Great video.

[@glitchFan2428]

Thanks for your thoughts and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I can definitely see both points of the argument there and I believe there's no right or wrong answer. I do agree that people don't care what the bus looks like as long as it actually turns up. Perhaps the quote was referring to the introduction of the service to potential passengers, which might increase the more people move to the area. Again, I see both sides here 👍

[@wclifton968gameplaystutorials]

I think bus franchising is terrible for the growth of bus services; Here in London there used to be many new bus services each year up until ~2005 when TfL changed their rules & subsidies and practically all "commercial" (i.e. non-subsidized/franchised services) bus routes were either withdrawn, became a part of the TfL network or have to cross the border of Greater London at some point so the operator is subject to different rules. This means there are pretty much no commercial bus services operating within Greater London or the City of London (excluding open-top tour buses which were privatised with LBSL subsidiaries in 1994) which has the side effect of services in some areas being solely subsidised so that an area has at least 1 bus service every 2hrs or that many areas have overcapacity where there are too many buses for the demand that is available but is run anyway because the government does not care how to adequately use tax payer money (TfL is self-funded though through fares, advertising and property revenue schemes apart from when the DfT gave them a couple billion quid payout in 2020-2021)...

[@glitchFan2428]

Hmmm it seems GM is going down that route, just like a couple of decades ago when everything was orange

[@andrewoakeshott7759]

Because of course in areas where buses were privatised, service levels have been on the incline, prices on the decrease and bus ridership through the roof... oh wait.... See, the truth is, there is no perfect system. A franchised i.e. publicly regulated system is only as good as public transport planners (and politicians) in the region/council allow it to be. And there you can either go the Swiss or Dutch route of carefully and cleverly integrated planning or muck it up like in parts of Greater London. Doesn't mean that publicly regulating a vital public service like public transport doesn't work. What your analysis also glosses over is that, like with many things, privatisation of buses did *initially* lead to certain successes, much in the same way that privatisation of the railways did (not regarding safety or ease of use, but in terms of service levels, investment etc.). However, once the rules of the market slowly set in (which takes more than just over a decade), healthy competition decreased, innovative start-ups died out and what Britain's public was left with was an unaccountable, patchy, messy, outdated, overpriced and underserved network of bus services, provided by just a small handful of cartelistic bus companies. Thing is, the rules of the free market do not apply to natural monopolies and public services such as public transport. My claim is the same would have happened in London in the long-term, I mean, why should it be any different to the rest of the UK? So within this, context franchising *is* the way forward and I predict that it *will* lead to an increase in ridership. Primarily, because more people will start using the buses IN CONJUCTION with other modes of transport. I'm not entirely knocking privatisation, it can have benefits, but there were some areas in the UK, South Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear being two prime examples, that through good planning and cleverly designed public policy had just prior to privatisation created a public transport system that was very popular and rather well used. Privatisation wrecked these systems and did not contribute in any way. In the case of South Yorkshire it was the high level of service (frequencies) coupled with very low ticket prices (subsidised), in Tyne and Wear it was the clever integration of metro services and buses. The latter is probably what Greater Manchester is trying to achieve in the long-term, through the full integration of trams, trains and buses by 2030 and they *could* succeed. Of course, the price cap for tickets is a good move too and acts as another incentive for a growth in bus ridership. As complex as regional public transport planning can seem sometimes, the basics are rather simple: 1) affordable ticket prices 2) ease of use through ticket & timetable integration and coherent network structure 3) high frequencies 4) high reliability and punctuality. Privatisation has, in the long-run, failed completely in all 4 aspects, though particularly regarding points 2 and 3. Bus services all across the UK have continually been cut leading to a decline in demand which then led to further cuts. A deadly spiral. In Glasgow they're about to get rid of nightbuses, madness! In Zurich, Switzerland, there are over 20 night bus lines running in 15-30 minute intervals all through the night and in Copenhagen some night bus lines even run as frequently as every 5-10 minutes. Bus franchising is the way forward.

[@andrewoakeshott7759]

@@psgistheworstclubineurope and there's an internet truism, sadly or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - here's another one - life is meaningless and we're all going to die :)

[@rachel.mcgowan]

​@@psgistheworstclubineuropeI read it. Thought he made some excellent points too.

[@alanoliver535]

We hope with new livery we will get a better service from Atherton to Manchester and that the service V2 stops at all stops between Atherton and Tyldesley or better still a circular via Howe Bridge and Atherleigh.

[@glitchFan2428]

A new route would definitely be interesting

[@alanoliver535]

Ive watched this video and must say i agree that perhaps if they put the towns these buses go through on the side and back it would be more advantage to people in that area as only buses with guide wheels can use the busway.

[@glitchFan2428]

Indeed, I suppose if people did notice the names of the destinations it could potentially convince them to use the bus.

[@grahambarr7015]

The First Bus Olympia bus is not kept at the outstation and is instead kept at the main Oldham depot as I have seen it on its dead run in the evenings on the Oldham bypass

[@glitchFan2428]

I see. It seems to appear during the morning and evening peak timings

[@brianmorrison9168]

My wife and I are visiting manchester in a few weeks, so are busy trying to work out some form of itinerary. Looking on Google Maps, one route we might take is showing as being on a 'V1 Vantage' bus. usually a simp,e bus number is given, so this puzzled me. It seems these are 'posh buses' for want of a better description .. does the 1-day Anybus travelcard still count on these buses.

[@glitchFan2428]

Yes the 1 day ticket is accepted on these high spec buses. I hope you enjoy your visit.

[@brianmorrison9168]

@@glitchFan2428 Many thanks. Yes, we are looking forward to our trip .. 2 nights in Manchester followed by 2 in Liverpool.

[@leswall3061]

Burnham/Labour public transport what can be expected?

[@glitchFan2428]

Well it's just started so we'll see what happens in due time. I'm pretty neutral about it all

[@psgistheworstclubineurope]

What has any of the names 'Bee Network' or 'Vantage' got to do with the buses in SG we only put SG❤BUS

[@leopold7562]

Vantage is a sub-brand of the First Bus group. The Bee Network is the new catch-all name that will ultimately identify the whole public transport network for Greater Manchester. The Bee part is because the bee is one of the city’s symbols

[@psgistheworstclubineurope]

I already know, but thanks for replying@@leopold7562

[@leopold7562]

I don’t think the colour of the bus is anything to do with its success. It’s probably more to do with it being an express bus service that largely works by bypassing normal roads. To that end, it doesn’t matter what colour it is. The fact that First run their stock livery buses on it as well kind of gives lie to the colour theory (unless someone can prove passenger numbers are lower). In any case, it’s still a silly gadget-bahn that would better serve Leigh and Atherton if it’d been a tram from the start

[@angelbex3]

I hope Singapore bus have franchise in future

[@glitchFan2428]

Since 2015

[@devon896]

Burnham is obsessed with his little pet project, I suppose he has to be seen to do something during his tenure. The problem with franchising is companies will only do what is specified in the contract so in the long run it actually harms investment, puts passengers off.

[@glitchFan2428]

I suppose only time will tell

[@Mgameing123]

Not neccesarily. There is competition to win contracts so therefore the companies will need to give their best if they want to continue earning their money.

[@facilitygamerr4865]

ra

[@glitchFuturre8888]

🎉

[@glitchFuturre8888]

First

[@theajbros5041]

2nd

[@Thatdudecrow]

3rd