Arriva indretter Kærlighedssæder i Bussen

Had my late father not spoken to my late mother atop a green Hants & Dorset double deck, you wouldn’t be reading this blog (if you see what I mean). For my parents met on board and started dating. Both were regular passengers twixt Poole & Bournemouth. I have no idea whether Dad had to pluck up courage or whether, one day, Mum just found herself sitting next to him. I get the impression things were a little planned. Whatever, the result was dancing, engagement, marriage and me (in that order, as it invariably was, in those days).

And, I’ve already intimated that I met my future wife not on a bus but in a bus station. So, it can’t be that hard to find a mate on the buses, right? Wrong, if you believe Arriva.

First we had bus stops, then St Valentine’s Day bus stunts and now Arriva in Copenhagen has set aside a specific red double seat on each of 100 or so of its buses as a meeting place for singles. “Arriva indretter kærlighedssæder i bussen”. This translates as Arriva introduces ‘love seats’ on its buses.

Passengers who sit in the red ‘hot’ seats are indicating they are single and may be willing to change that status. Writing in Denmark’s MetroXpress newspaper, business development manager Marianne Færch stated Arriva wished to encourage more flirting and smiles. Sounds a little ghastly but as a commercial gimmick, plain and simple, it may generate revenue.

But, what if...

• There’s nowhere else to sit? Does a married person chance it? Or is the seat effectively sterilised for normal use? Thankfully, the continental way tends to favour high standee volumes.


• You’re tired, disabled, injured or otherwise can’t stand? Or the journey’s a long one?


• The whole bus has a bit of a laugh at someone who tries the red seat having found that no one wishes to join them?

I wonder whether this concept might be portable to English culture. I doubt it. For one thing, a higher proportion of travellers are older, here.

It’s said that the Danes show less reserve than the English (they are, after all, Scandinavian). Why then do they need an identifiable red seat on a bus in the first place? And, back to Hants & Dorset, would things have been different for my parents had there been a red seat on *their* bus?