It’s an interesting thought that the UK’s biggest transport group First has adopted limited though important sub-branding/regional identities for its strategic rail businesses (where once there was a unified British Rail), yet just one unified, single brand for its local bus businesses (where once there was a multitude local branding to fit the area served).
An article I think by Roger Davies in this month’s Buses Magazine probably won’t make pleasant reading at each of the Big Five’s headquarters. It appears particularly to have a go at First. It’s this: with the appearance of corporatisation, there’s been a disappearance of Civic Pride in the bus industry.
Buses is right to raise this issue. There *was* an underlying civic pride in local operations—whether municipal or not—serving purely local or sub-regional networks. We’ve dwelt on this before and the balance between local individuality versus corporate identity. There’s no easy conclusion, for it’s fair to say that passengers certainly do respond to ‘local’ branding well but equally there’s evidence to suggest they understand better fares and initiatives introduced more nationally.
Yet, buses remain local to an area and whether we like it or not (and here, too, we repeat ourselves), they are perceived as public assets. Privatised buses act in similar ways to the services provided by local councils and other public services. That’s even evident in the strongly unionised nature of the transport industry—almost alone nowadays, with local government. Many government services are delivered locally for very good reason and to suggest, for example, that Poole & Bournemouth councils should merge is anathema. Bus services are often aligned with this sort of mode of thinking.
Buses Magazine proffered a solution it called ‘PLC lite’—larger operators taking a recent Arriva-type solution where it bought but retained Tellings Golden Miller as was where it acquired a significant stake and Centrebus Holdings while retaining a local identity. The same is appears true of National Express’ purchase of The King’s Ferry.
Where the corporate machine sees a better return in retaining an established identity, it has every incentive to do so. Might it just be that this is the future; or that we might revert back to some sort of long lost Go Ahead model? A return to the mid-1980s paint pot approach?
This is all assuming that passengers *do* have some sort of civic or local pride. Look back at any local newspaper from the 1960s forward and you’ll see letter after letter and story after story complaining about fares, frequencies and flagging up of poor standards. In a sense, nothing’s changed but I guess that we remain nostalgic for the old times. A lick of paint, though, won’t save the industry. It goes deeper than that and the grass isn’t always greener.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Civic Pride & a Lick of Paint
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5 comments:
There does seem to have been a shift in attidtudes from First Group recently in terms of local route branding. Once upon a time all route branding had to be done the same way with the old coloured 'lines' asppearing across the country and very strictly controlled by HQ.
These days local fleets seem to be allowed to run with their own ideas. Ugo bus in Plymouth is an example which i havent seen anywhere else in the country, and I know there are others. Perhaps a sign from above that 'local' might just be best in some cases?
To be fair, Roger Davies identifies corporatism as one of a number of misguided policies from various organisations, the end result of which is less-than-best quality services and facilities in Leeds. However, I do agree that this form of corporatism is inappropriate to bus operations.
In the case of Mars bars, for example, it is reasonable to have a corporate approach, whether you are selling them in Cambridge or in Chepstow (at least, as far as the Mars bars themselves go); but bus services are different. They are inevitably affected by the local geography, so the bus services in Cambridge and Chepstow are different from each other, and deserve to be identified as such. Of course, if you are observant, you will note that even forty years ago, the buses in both of those places would have been the same colours (theoretically!), and they did in fact belong to the same group, but they had their own local names, and effectively without displaying any clue to the common ownership.
I have always suspected that such corporatism may well rebound on the companies who practice it. During the mid-70's, one of my local operators (a red NBC subsidiary) suffered from staff shortages and a consequent poor record for reliability due to lost mileage. Anybody going on holiday from that area to south Devon may well not have been encouraged to travel on the local buses (Devon General) seeing that they were the same colour, and, of course, carried the same NBC symbol. Ten years prior, the ownership, and the appearance, of the buses in the two areas would have been completely different to each other.
Going back to Mars bars, if they are recognised as being good for you, that will be true everywhere. Equally, of course, if they are found to be fattening, then they'll have that effect in Cambridge, Chepstow, and everywhere else! Bus services are different - positive (or negative) influences in one area may not be repeated elsewhere, so the 'local' aspect is much more important - and it needs to be recognised and made identifiable.
All of which are good points, however one of the arguments for corporate identity is that when buses are transferred they don't need to be repainted. Certainly if every time one of the big groups shuffled buses around they had to be repainted costs would go up, which would inevitably increase fares. Standardisation also helps with other costs as well - uniform, management systems and so on. Again this lowers costs, keeping fares reasonably low, compared to what they would be otherwise. Smaller groups have less of a problem with this as there tend to be fewer inter-group transfers and more devolved management.
Some local branding on top of this should not be a problem however and perhaps that should be the angle taken by the groups, e.g. Stagecoach Cambus, First Eastern National, Arriva County Bus, Veolia Dunn-Line and so on...
Ah but, Anonymous, I think you've missed one of the points I was making - that is, even forty years ago, the buses in Cambridge and Chepstow were the same colour, so the inter company transfer issue was already resolved. In those cases, it was the names that were different, and individual, and without any reference to the corporate whole. I believe that helped give the apparent local 'independence', and probably promoted the sense of local 'ownership' - 'civic pride' that Roger Davies refers to.
I would suggest that the other issues - management systems, uniform, etc, can be standardised to keep costs down, without needing to bring the corporate standardisation into the public eye - NBC, for example, managed to standardise uniforms without separate badges for the company - interestingly enough, without the 'double N'!
To be honest, I think corporate names with local branding are little better. Inevitably, the corporate requirements dictate that the corporate name has priority, and, in any case, is that not the current situation in many cases already? Looking at the article in 'Buses', First appears to have abandoned displaying local subsidiary names, but Stagecoach appears to be still using them, albeit not very prominently. And I have to ask how important the inter-company transfer issue really is? If that sort of factor is allowed to determine the operator's public image and identity, I am bound to say that it seems like a case of 'the tail wagging the dog'.
Ugobus in Plymouth is specifically a Plymouth brand and designed accordingly following specific market research in Plymouth. Green was also chosen being the City's colours. There is not a Ugobus anywhere else in First.
Marc Reddy
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