Superbus

Arriva Shires & Essex has resurrected the Superbus brand name. In 2007, we felt that Superbus was one of the industry’s top seven liveries. But if you expect to see the yellow & blue of old, please think again.

Readers who are that bit older might remember Superbus. 40 years ago almost to the day, it started when London Country was in its infancy. With equal funding from the Department of the Environment and Stevenage’s Development Corporation, the idea was to up frequencies significantly as an alternative to mass car ownership and road building. There was a parallel though different experiment in Runcorn new town.

London Country out-shopped two Metro Scanias, some Leyland Nationals and some of its inherited London Transport AEC Swifts in a pleasant and distinctive yellow and blue Superbus livery, with large stylised joined-at-the-top “SB” logos. It renumbered routes as SB1, SB2, etc though the initial, single 1971 route coinciding with new London overspill housing development to Chells was unnumbered, before becoming SB1.

Was this the first large scale example of a dedicated & separate local livery, without reference other than on the legals to the actual operator?

£1.20 is a great fare (and here I assume that it relates to the equivalent per day cost of a season). A sobering thought, though, is that the original flat SB fare of single 6p is equivalent to about 65p today. Hopper technology and no ticket issued back then, either

In relaunching SB in Stevenage, Arriva makes great play of reverting to what some might feel was a golden era. “On 27th March the Stevenage town network of bus services are re-launched as the SB network. For many of you this will be renaming routes as they used to be.”

Arriva hasn’t chosen to go back to yellow & blue, though. Five or so years after London Country launched SB, green single and double decks had already diluted the brand, in any case. And, by 1980, SB converted itself into plain “Stevenage Bus” amid accusations that estates such as Chells benefited from a somehow superior bus service.

In running the story, the local media managed to confuse Arriva with Aviva!

In relaunching its Stevenage bus network, Arriva has added large “SB” roundels to the side of its fleet, in orange rather than yellow.

• In capitalising on SB, might the impact have been higher had they chosen a non-Arriva livery, like an updated SB of old?


• Is there benefit of going back in time to capitalise partly on nostalgia or is such a move seen as retrograde? Younger people won’t have a clue and will older people be that impressed?


• What goes around comes around? Shades of MAP names perhaps?


• Can you successfully mix ’n match brands like this? Stagecoach does it well. Could Arriva?


• Are there sufficient other changes to make this worthwhile?
  

i Arriva has a potted history of Superbus on its website