The Restricted View from the Top Deck
5 December 2021
ABOVE: Excessive branding for London route 427, on front and side windows
There is good branding on buses and there is bad branding.
Brighton and Hove can do good branding. Many of their vehicles are comprehensively branded for individual routes, but the branding is clear and unobtrusive. In particular, none of the windows are obscured. Have a look at some of the photos on its current fleet page (try 848 as a good example of clear, comprehensive branding).
But many other operators, all over the country, seem to love plastering the windows of their buses with external branding or advertising, at the expense of those already on board.
ABOVE: National Express West Midlands 6114 on a trip from Sutton Coldfield to Central Birmingham on route X14, on Saturday 18th September 2021
National Express West Midlands (NXWM) is keen to show that it is a Living Wage employer, but why is it necessary to put a blob in the front upper deck window to tell us? A small item, perhaps, but right in my line of sight.
The next photo is a bus on route 427 in West London, with branding that TfL introduced a few years ago as part of a local awareness campaign based on the Hayes and Harlington area. Quite striking from the outside, but what about inside? (See the head of this article to find out!)
ABOVE: Abellio London 2556 at Brookside Road in Hayes, Middlesex, on Saturday 4th December 2021
As the title picture shows, the panoramic front window view is substantially obscured by an ill-thought-out branding design, and of course the side view is obscured as well. Not easy if you want a front seat view, because there isn't one.
Bad branding takes many forms. The Transport for London (TfL) branding for Express route 607 (also part of the Hayes scheme mentioned above) included, in its list of places served, "Southall Park". While buses on this route do pass Southall Park, they do not stop there! Thankfully the branding on this route, which also included front windscreen abominations, was discontinued when the allocated buses were upgraded in 2019.
The other bad branding is of course where an operator puts a bus out on a different route to the one that it is branded for. NXWM is a bad offender here. I saw numerous examples during two days travelling across the region in September. In an extreme case, I saw an X1 (Birmingham to Coventry) branded for the X2 (Birmingham to Solihull), and behind it, an X2 carrying X1 branding!
Even worse are the all-over advertising wraps that operators have been known to put over a vehicle, which basically prevent people from seeing out of any part of the bus. I had to endure one of those on a trip from Fleetwood to Blackpool on Blackpool Transport Route 1.
So my plea to operators is - please think about those who are using the bus, and want to see out of the windows. There is plenty of space on a bus for publicity or advertising without blocking the windows! Keep them clear!