Passing through Darlington at Christmas it struck me just how many brands there are associated with the buses in the town. This isn't case of competition confusion, or of smaller operators providing niche services, rather, it seems to be over-active marketing departments. All services are provided by Arriva, but the customer is faced with these brands:
- Arriva
- Frequenta
- Sapphire
- Max
- Whoosh
- Darlington Borough Council
- Localmotion
- Connect Tees Valley
All seems a bit excessive to me!
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| The most common brand is 'Frequenta' on the buses around the town, mainly longer Opare Solos. Once upon a time this was United 'Roadranger'. |
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| Max is an Arriva brand that no one really understands - theoretically older buses refurbished to a higher-than-average-but-not-quite-Sapphire standard, but these Streetlites don't fit the age criteria. |
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| Sapphire is an Arriva service proposition that makes your everyday journey sparkle! |
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| Frequenta buses aren't just turquoise Solos, they are also green MAN gas buses. |
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| However the green MAN gas buses can also be 'Whoosh' buses if you're going to Peterlee/Sunderland. |
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| Bus stop flags are primarily branded 'Connect Tees Valley'. Many of them carry a haphazardly-placed Frequenta sticker, but does make you ask whether only Frequenta (town, local, 'Roadrunner'.....) services stop there. The statement 'All services' is particularly unhelpful as it actually means 'All services that are planned to stop here'. At least at-stop timetable information is reasonably good. |
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| However the at-stop information is branded by Darlington Borough Council and Localmotion. Localmotion was the project name for the DfT 'sustainable travel town' demonstration project a few years ago. |
Wouldn't it be good to rationalise this confusing array of brands (and no doubt websites) and focus on one brand for town services (Localmotion sounds better than Frequenta, and has a bit of local history to it), and for the wider Arriva to work out what Max is. This would work if affected parties adopted the spirit of cooperation, but I suspect for as long as different bodies have responsibility for running, buses, installing flags, and printing publicity, they'll all want their own brands(s) promoted.
