Last updated: 30 April 2018

If you travel to the north-east of the local bus network, you arrive in First Berkshire territory at Slough where they have a type of branding which is different to other regions. Reminiscent of Blackpool and Reading buses, where routes have a particular coloured bus, Slough has adopted a partial colour livery to their vehicles to denote a specific route. The vivid, distinctive colours are clear on the front of the vehicle so intending passengers become used to their bus. Lime Green is used for route 1; Pink for 3; Orange (as shown) for 4; Yellow Services for 6 and so on. Services start from the bus station in the town centre and go in all directions from there. This month’s bus is one of the fleet of thirteen 38-seater Euro 5 Mercedes 0530 based in Slough.

This view of no. 64031 (LK07 CCD), taken adjacent to the busy intersection outside Slough Bus Station on 14 April 2018 by John Sherwin, shows the orange livery of service 4 to Maidenhead to good effect. If you were in the Solent region about fifteen years ago, a local version of route branding was in operation where routes 1/1A/1C had a dark red band above the windows, for example, as part of the ‘Overground’ series at the time. The dark red background displayed the wording of the main points on the routes. Colourful route branding seems to work and bus operators use a variety of ways of adopting the idea to their routes.

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