BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

antoinolachtnai

The designs are very weak really. It has turned into design by some Sort of committee. The identity needs something simple and striking, I would say amber or yellow (like the Luas stripe, the buses in the 70s or the current Dublin Bus bus stops) or else green like the DART or what DB was in the 80s.

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The designs are very weak really. It has turned into design by some Sort of committee. The identity needs something simple and striking, I would say amber or yellow (like the Luas stripe, the buses in the 70s or the current Dublin Bus bus stops) or else green like the DART or what DB was in the 80s.

+100% to that.

The liveries as presented in this fait-accompli,are universally dull,mediocre and downright unfit for purpose in a 21st century Mass Transit environment.

Whilst there are elements of the NTA which are forward thinking and modernist,in recent times,I am getting an increasing sense of a re-emergence of a distinct Established Civil Service ethos in certain areas.

Surely involving some of our Art & Design colleges would have been a more forward thinking approach,even if only for the Optics.

Operationally,choosing White as a primary element in a Bus livery,can only have one shabby outcome as the months pass.....:(

antoinolachtnai

Well, designing brand identity for transport is something I have been involved in a few times and it is a specialized thing. The results should give you something that has lasting power for 50 years or longer. It is not really an activity for students or the inexperienced.

By all means you could have diverse groups working on the implementation of the brand in many different ways. But the important thing at this stage is to determine the thread that holds the whole thing together.

antoinolachtnai

I would also say that NTA has to do something bold here with the bus service. They need to do something bold with the ‘look’ of it as part of that.

AlekSmart

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Well, designing brand identity for transport is something I have been involved in a few times and it is a specialized thing. The results should give you something that has lasting power for 50 years or longer. It is not really an activity for students or the inexperienced.

By all means you could have diverse groups working on the implementation of the brand in many different ways. But the important thing at this stage is to determine the thread that holds the whole thing together.

I would disagree on excluding either Students or Inexperienced,to the extent of reserving the design function for those with 50 year perspectives.

Modern society has altered in almost every function,including the importance placed upon "Traditionally" important elements,such as long term branding.

A significant amount of people now fully expect Commercial Entities to regularly reinvent and morph in terms of Identity,and this should be ignored at one's peril.

We may have to get comfortable with a far shorter shelf-life in terms of our Identies,as short as 5 years in some cases ?

I don't necessarily find it appealing to my senses,but I cannot ignore what the younger and more vibrant generations are saying either ?

Stephen15

AlekSmart wrote: »

+100% to that.

The liveries as presented in this fait-accompli,are universally dull,mediocre and downright unfit for purpose in a 21st century Mass Transit environment.

Whilst there are elements of the NTA which are forward thinking and modernist,in recent times,I am getting an increasing sense of a re-emergence of a distinct Established Civil Service ethos in certain areas.

Surely involving some of our Art & Design colleges would have been a more forward thinking approach,even if only for the Optics.

Operationally,choosing White as a primary element in a Bus livery,can only have one shabby outcome as the months pass.....:(

Tbh my five year nephew could have designed a better livery than what's on offer

devnull

Yes, they need to make the technical changes to the system under the hood so to speak and the technical aspects of how the service operates, how it runs and the operational decisions and environment since that is the nuts and the bolts of the service to retain current customers which will also help to win some new ones.

But to win new ones they're also going to have to shake off the image of the past that many car owners have about Dublin Bus and give people the indication that something has changed and a new livery will help sell that and the fact people should try the bus again as it has changed and this is not the old bus that you remember from 10 years ago but it something completely new.

This is why Eircom invested a load of money into their network and then rebranded themselves as Eir with a more modern image. Eircom as a brand was seen as outdated, old fashioned and had a lot of negative baggage and quite toxic to some people and they've been able to shed a lot of that by rebranding.

Dyr

devnull wrote: »

Yes, they need to make the technical changes to the system under the hood so to speak and the technical aspects of how the service operates, how it runs and the operational decisions and environment since that is the nuts and the bolts of the service to retain current customers which will also help to win some new ones.

But to win new ones they're also going to have to shake off the image of the past that many car owners have about Dublin Bus and give people the indication that something has changed and a new livery will help sell that and the fact people should try the bus again as it has changed and this is not the old bus that you remember from 10 years ago but it something completely new.

This is why Eircom invested a load of money into their network and then rebranded themselves as Eir with a more modern image. Eircom as a brand was seen as outdated, old fashioned and had a lot of negative baggage and quite toxic to some people and they've been able to shed a lot of that by rebranding.

So a livery that looks like it's from the 80s should convince car owners that buses are the future:D

Eircom brand changed many times over the years but never shook their well deserved reputation for being crap

devnull

Bambi wrote: »

So a livery that looks like it's from the 80s should convince car owners that buses are the future.

Not at all - the current proposed liveries are crap, they need to have a fresh modern livery that indicates that this is not the same old bus service as before and things have changed, but the brand needs to be bold and proud without being gimmicky and over the top.

Eircom brand changed many times over the years but never shook their well deserved reputation for being crap

I know people who work in Eircom and they have certainly seen a change in perception to the brand, not from all people, granted, but certainly they are seen as a more modern and forward thinking company in their current guise than their last guise because everything about them screamed dated previously.

I also worked in another company for 3 years which was in a right mess, the company was restructured from top to bottom and all the issues were dealt with one by one yet we still had the reputation of doing all of the things from the past even though it had not been the case for a good 12 months but people still continue to make the incorrect claims on a regular basis.

So we decided to re-brand the company and within 3 months we saw more of an improvement in our reputation than we had the previous 12 months where we made the actual business changes, because our previous brand was associated with bad practices.

When you overhaul an operation you have to deal with the underlying problems in the business but you also need to shake off the image that the underlying problems gave you. You can take a one star business to a five star business but if you can't shed the image of being a one star business people will keep regarding you as one star business regardless of what you do.

dublinman1990

The dominance of white on the background of these new proposed liveries is not really something that I nor the public will be attracted to in the long term. The constant need to have repaint cycles when buses become grubby will have to be seriously considered by the NTA to be a worthwhile process. I say this because the constant repaint cycles for buses costs a lot of money.

In the bus livery survey; I chose Option C because for me it was the best one out of a bad lot out of the four options available. I mentioned in the survey that Option C should have a flick of green on it instead of the silver to make it stand out more. Include the flick of green on the back of the bus where blue & white are it's most dominant colours. The only bit of green which is seen on Option C is the Transport for Ireland logo on the sides & on the back of the bus. The silver stroke on that livery is an odd choice because it didn't work for me being on the outside of the blue.



Is the silver stroke of that livery adapted from Ashbourne Connect where their bus branding is green, white & silver?

bk

Bambi wrote: »

Eircom brand changed many times over the years but never shook their well deserved reputation for being crap

You will find that in the past I've been the biggest critic of Eircom in the day, I actively "fought" them in my involvement with Ireland Off Line.

However I have to say in fairness to them they have done a fantastic job in turning the company around in the last 5 years. Their rollout of FTTC was one the the fastest and most impressive in the world of telecoms and gave a really solid and reliable broadband product to most people in Ireland and they are now following that up with a solid FTTH rollout. And their Meter network was always rock solid and had a great reputation.

The modern Eir really isn't crap at all. Pretty solid, competitive modern company now and their re-branding does a good job of reflecting this change.

bk

That Ashbourne Connect livery actually looks pretty nice and would work well for a livery for bus services across the whole of Ireland (BE in Cork, etc.).

Is the new NTA one for just Dublin? Too much Blue in it for the rest of the country IMO.

I've seen something like the proposed NTA liveries on some 7xx route, I can't remember which one now, and I have to say it really didn't look good.

RayM

I'm no expert, but I have MS Paint and I'm not afraid to use it. I've made a few adjustments, using one of BusConnects' own designs and their palette of colours and I think it looks a bit less bad (from the side, at least. The front still doesn't look right).

devnull

That's easily better than any of the liveries that I have seen to date - well done!

But as you say the front doesn't look right being all one color below the wing mirrors, i just looks far too plain but I see why they've done that, essentially the front livery continues around the sides.

I'd also guess that flipping the Grey and the Green would deal with that problem but would probably clash badly.

dfx-

I'd be surprised if A doesn't 'win' it given their spiel on the page before the liveries are shown on the survey. The design of A is clearly linked with the pictures/labelling/signs that they are putting forward for one livery on the page before.

By winning it, obviously I mean nobody wins, especially not the eyes of the travelling public or bystanders on the paths or anyone with roads outside their front window.

devnull

dfx- wrote: »

I'd be surprised if A doesn't 'win' it given their spiel on the page before the liveries are shown on the survey. The design of A is clearly linked with the pictures/labelling/signs that they are putting forward for one livery on the page before.

Both A and B appear to be revised versions of those which have been exhibited before and C and D look to be completely new options that were only released this week.

I think A is the worst one of the lot not just from a design point of view, but because of the amount of white that will show the dirt but also the busy nature of the rear that will be a nightmare for repaints.

KD345

I'm not a fan of these designs, the colours are bland and have no strong identity. It is clear the designers were told to work with the Transport For Ireland colours, but unfortunately, what works well on a letterhead or logo does not translate well to a double decker bus.

I agree with an earlier poster on this thread, the replacing of panels with these liveries will be tricky. City buses frequently have panels replaced and some of the designs risk leaving buses looking patchy when replacing sections. Keep it simple and the buses will look smart.

All of these buses will be carrying advertising panels, so it might be good to see how the proposed liveries will look with ads in place.

The most striking thing for me when taking this survey was reading how this new livery will be for Go Ahead. There is no mention of Dublin Bus at all on this survey, and it claims this design is for a "new service operator" and it will be worn by "over 120 buses". Later in the survey it asks if all operators should wear the same livery? At the launch of Bus Connects it was claimed this was the plan.

I might be wrong, but is it now a case that Dublin Bus is sticking with their yellow livery and these designs are for the new operator only?

devnull

KD345 wrote: »

I'm not a fan of these designs, the colours are bland and have no strong identity. It is clear the designers were told to work with the Transport For Ireland colours, but unfortunately, what works well on a letterhead or logo does not translate well to a double decker bus.

I agree with an earlier poster on this thread, the replacing of panels with these liveries will be tricky. City buses frequently have panels replaced and some of the designs risk leaving buses looking patchy when replacing sections. Keep it simple and the buses will look smart.

Personally I think they need to simplify it to the point that they use two major colours for a livery and if they are going to use a third only use it in a very minor way otherwise you have the mess that we've seen where it simply doesn't work, they need to keep it far more simple.

The most striking thing for me when taking this survey was reading how this new livery will be for Go Ahead. There is no mention of Dublin Bus at all on this survey, and it claims this design is for a "new service operator" and it will be worn by "over 120 buses". Later in the survey it asks if all operators should wear the same livery? At the launch of Bus Connects it was claimed this was the plan.

I might be wrong, but is it now a case that Dublin Bus is sticking with their yellow livery and these designs are for the new operator only?

And this really troubles me, because we all know that the plan has been that essentially will operate services exactly the same way as Dublin Bus, the fares will be set the same way, the timetables will be set the same way the same tickets will be valid and nothing will change when the services transfer to Go-Ahead apart from who is operating them.

However if an operator then starts running around in a completely different livery it does nothing to help a properly integrated system and it may make a lot of the public think that they are a stand alone operator with their own fares and ticketing systems which may discourage usage and increase confusion about how it is all going to work.

If we're going to have multiple operators running PSO bus routes it needs to be tightly integrated as a coherent system but I'm really starting to worry that when Go-Ahead launch we're going to instead end up with a system which becomes fragmented and more customer unfriendly, it makes no sense to go down such a route.

The question is why did the NTA seemingly change their approach? External pressures?

Stephen15

dublinman1990 wrote: »

The dominance of white on the background of these new proposed liveries is not really something that I nor the public will be attracted to in the long term. The constant need to have repaint cycles when buses become grubby will have to be seriously considered by the NTA to be a worthwhile process. I say this because the constant repaint cycles for buses costs a lot of money.

In the bus livery survey; I chose Option C because for me it was the best one out of a bad lot out of the four options available. I mentioned in the survey that Option C should have a flick of green on it instead of the silver to make it stand out more. Include the flick of green on the back of the bus where blue & white are it's most dominant colours. The only bit of green which is seen on Option C is the Transport for Ireland logo on the sides & on the back of the bus. The silver stroke on that livery is an odd choice because it didn't work for me being on the outside of the blue.

After having a second look at it. It reminds me somewhat of the Cityswift livery minus the orange.

dfx-

Why do the NTA not realise why white is such a bad option?

It's this lack of operational insight or forethought that allows for such distrust in any of their ideas.

punisher5112

There will be black oil and dirt all over them it will look shocking after a week in service.

Egg and bird sh1t will also be an issue.

tabbey

punisher5112 wrote: »

There will be black oil and dirt all over them it will look shocking after a week in service.

Egg and bird sh1t will also be an issue.

Yes, if white is to be used, it should be on the higher levels, not near the road surface with mud and spray fro other vehicles.

Spanish Eyes

Not one bit happy if the livery is not global for all buses in Dublin. That is just ridiculous.

TFL managed it fine, I don't see why an integrated bus system here cannot do the same.

Is there something afoot with DB or what? Surely if TFI own the fleet it is up to them to decide.

antoinolachtnai

Even if NTA / TFI don’t own the fleet, the livery is for them to decide. DB only provides the service under a contract.

dfx-

tabbey wrote: »

Yes, if white is to be used, it should be on the higher levels, not near the road surface with mud and spray fro other vehicles.

They don't need to go far to see this or have a meeting or a public consultation. You can see it in the hideous white and pink abomination in Belfast that serves as their livery - it's just up the road.

dublinman1990

Here is the new BRT bus for Belfast. It looks really nice. I wonder would happen if these were in Dublin's BRT for BusConnects?



https://www.flickr.com/photos/shedinagarden/23987420858/in/faves-81709772@N07/

devnull

That looks horrible at the front, very block and square like

punisher5112

devnull wrote: »

That looks horrible at the front, very block and square like

Like a snow plough....

Stephen15

While I'm for the idea of a BRT I'm completely against having a separately branded BRT and treating it as a separate mode of transport to a normal bus. It should be fully intergrated into the Dublin city bus network. Plenty of cities across Europe have BRT networks eg. Paris Mobilien however they are not treated any differently to normal buses, while the rest of the bus network are well intergrated in with the BRT network.

A BRT thats not properly intergrated and treated as a separate transport would be almost be like Cityswift Mk2 and more importantly would be seem like a cheap fix to Metro North or even another Luas line.

I don't we should be going for a speical type of bus either like those ugly Vanhools that Belfast is getting. An ordinary bendy like Citaros or Man Lion's City would be perfect.

Stephen15

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Here is the new BRT bus for Belfast. It looks really nice. I wonder would happen if these were in Dublin's BRT for BusConnects?



https://www.flickr.com/photos/shedinagarden/23987420858/in/faves-81709772@N07/

They look a bus gone to a fancy dress party dressed as a tram.