35 Years Ago – Part 2

Part 2 of 2. Part 1 here

So it was, then, that Superbus emerged first in March but fully in July 1971, as one of a small number of National Bus Company experiments among England’s 21 so-called new towns. In Stevenage, it had followed an earlier trial based on pre-bookable peak services known as Blue Arrow, augmenting existing timetables. In turn, Blue Arrow had emerged following a desire to minimise expenditure on roads within Stevenage’s planned utopia, something not wholly attainable following pressure from private motorists.

London Country Bus Services could not take all the credit for the Superbus livery and network. It was funded by the then Department of the Environment and Stevenage Development Corporation, both examining the possibilities of high frequency bus services as an alternative to building and maintaining extra road capacity. Frequencies were as high as every five minutes, at peak times. SB1 was joined in September 1972 by SB2, both tending to use fast primary routes, terminating in residential or industrial areas.

The initial allocation of vehicles on Superbus was also as interesting as its branding. They included advanced Metro-Scania single deck integrals, the only ones for a NBC subsidiary.

Was Superbus successful? Passengers increased in the first four years of operation by 180 per cent. It was said at the time that about one quarter of workers who previously had taken their car transferred to SB. On these performance measures, SB was a success. But SB never covered anything like its costs of operation. That said, remember it was designed to minimise capital expenditure of road construction and improvements.

Others SB routes were added as the seventies progressed, invariably worked by Leyland Atlantean double decks in leaf green. By the end of the seventies, the bold vision of a differentiated, branded service had dwindled. Was its legacy the route branding some operators use today?

For more on Superbus, we recommend this external page.