TfWM corporate branding

[midlandred2003]

We have been here before 40 years ago buses in Newcastle were all painted yellow. Leeds, Liverpool all had the appropriate Logo on and Birmingham all consumed by the one company it was called a PTE.Just waiting now for Midland Red to make a return happy days.

[Tiptonian]

To me, this all looks like typical Local Authority "look at what we're doing" grandstanding. Referring to the link Stu has posted, how do they reconcile "...we will have trains, trams, buses and cycles with one uniting identity...." with "Each has its own distinctive livery - orange for trains, blue for trams, red for buses, green for bikes...." ? Using a small and  unimpressive logo along with the words "West Midlands" will not unite the four, far more powerful, liveries. The logo is barely discernible in the photograph, which seems to be more about the three people than the transport. Also, how does a comprehensive and integrated system work with a deregulated bus industry? Are we to have London style franchising for the whole county? Is one body going to control all bus train and tram timetables? Is that body going to take responsibility when things go wrong, or simply pass the buck to the individual private companies? When this was last started by the WMPTA/WMPTE in 1968 (yes, 50 YEARS AGO!) they took control and they took responsibility.  Trams aside (a very costly yet small proportion of passenger miles), this just looks like a weak style-over-substance publicity exercise.   

[Tiptonian]

@midlandred2003. If you look at its ancestry, NXWM is Midland Red!

[midlandred2003]

Fair point, but what a waste of time and money. And don't get me started about the moron who decided to renumber all the routes?

[fleetline6477]

Whilst I am all in favour of more co-ordinated timetables between operators I think the livery idea is ridiculous.

If there is to be a new livery I feel it should be in neutral colours, the livery on 4878 looks very much like the current NX livery on the sides and rear and the previous livery on the front. Using a coolur such as the green now on First's 144 would work, otherwise it can easily give the impression that all vehicles on the 4/4H, 16, 50 etc are NX.

A question would Diamond be expected to run buses on route 16W in TfWM livery as the route is different to NX 16 or NX to run TfWM liveried buses on the 4M? There is possibly an easy way around this, to renumber routes, for example if Diamond re-numbered their 16 as 15 it is a different route.

This potenially adds costs to small operators such as Banga, DTS, Travel Express who will need to repaint 100% of their fleet.

Maybe a sensible comprimise is for competing routes to have the same style of route branding applied to their livery.

[Stevo]

Who's paying? WMCA is the tram operator and the rail franchise is subsidised heavily so council tax and income tax money is already funding these, but most NXWM routes are commercial. Do NXWM and other operators get some sort of grant for repainting?

[V89MOA]

tfwm need sort out the archaic swift system first before throwing money at stunts like this. Went to a newsagent on a high street in Brum today intending to buy a 1 week NBus pass for somebody, to be told it is only available on swift now (admittedly it's been a while now, this may have changed ages ago) and I'd be unable to have one as the swift machines havent been working for four days. The guy in the shop then went on to tell me not to bother wasting my time with it anyway(I did say to him after I would never have swift anyway) as they had had numerous customers coming back complaining about the swift system and how unreliable it is! Several of his customers had been unable to "collect" money afterwards or activate the cards and were blaming the shop and one had complained that her pass wasn't working correctly. Long story short he ended the conversation with and I quote "we're just recommending everyone who asks now to buy the National Express travelcards as they are easier".. suffice to say an NX travelcard was purchased instead!  Makes you wonder just how many people have actually had poor experience with it overall if that was just one shopkeeper!

[james99]

tfwm need sort out the archaic swift system first before throwing money at stunts like this. Went to a newsagent on a high street in Brum today intending to buy a 1 week NBus pass for somebody, to be told it is only available on swift now (admittedly it's been a while now, this may have changed ages ago) and I'd be unable to have one as the swift machines havent been working for four days. The guy in the shop then went on to tell me not to bother wasting my time with it anyway(I did say to him after I would never have swift anyway) as they had had numerous customers coming back complaining about the swift system and how unreliable it is! Several of his customers had been unable to "collect" money afterwards or activate the cards and were blaming the shop and one had complained that her pass wasn't working correctly. Long story short he ended the conversation with and I quote "we're just recommending everyone who asks now to buy the National Express travelcards as they are easier".. suffice to say an NX travelcard was purchased instead!  Makes you wonder just how many people have actually had poor experience with it overall if that was just one shopkeeper!

Honestly I completely agree here.

I've had so many issues with my Swift card that I feel like it's just poorly managed and a rushed system.

Firstly, I wasn't able to register my card on the website, meaning I had to call them up to get it registered again
Secondly, after purchasing an upgrade it wouldn't update my card so I had to spend 45 minutes on the phone (20 on hold) waiting for someone to resend the update.

On top of this, TfWM don't seem to know the product themselves. Network WM twitter told me I could buy an NNetwork Daytripper from Moor Street on Swift, and when I got there I was told at the ticket office I had to go to New Street. I showed them the tweet and they just said that they should know as it's their own product.

Also, if anyone decides its a good idea to get rid of NX only etc season tickets, forcing everyone onto a more expensive multi operator one issued on Swift, I think a lot of people will stop using buses because most people as it is have NX travelcards, and when they have an increase of more than a £1 I think there will be a bit of a backlash.

[Jack]

TfWM lover has kept quiet I notice.
Honestly I'm not surprised about NBus, considering everything is about bloody Swift nowadays! Reasons that have been mentioned here are why I refuse to have a swift card and rather have my monthly bus pass that comes through the post. Tbf Swift is all over the place nowadays so no surprise NBus is not as popular now. Family members who use Swift say they regretted having it now after the constant problems they have with it.

[cardew]

Swift is awful, I gave up with it. The top-up via the website is appallingly slow, so may times I got to the final screen to discover my top-up amount was GBP 0.00.

Having finally put a tenner on it, while trying to load the card using NFC,  the recently updated app killed my phone to such an extent I had to google how to recover it from its collapsed state.

When i finally located a machine to load the card manually - Pershore Road has THREE in Cotteridge then only one during the whole length of the road into Brum, it was broken.

The NX ticket app on the other hand is superb.

[james99]

Swift is awful, I gave up with it. The top-up via the website is appallingly slow, so may times I got to the final screen to discover my top-up amount was GBP 0.00.

Having finally put a tenner on it, while trying to load the card using NFC,  the recently updated app killed my phone to such an extent I had to google how to recover it from its collapsed state.

When i finally located a machine to load the card manually - Pershore Road has THREE in Cotteridge then only one during the whole length of the road into Brum, it was broken.

The NX ticket app on the other hand is superb.

Speaking of the top up machines... I believe theres none in the Sutton Coldfield or Erdington area.

[Dom]

TfWM lover has kept quiet I notice.
Honestly I'm not surprised about NBus, considering everything is about bloody Swift nowadays! Reasons that have been mentioned here are why I refuse to have a swift card and rather have my monthly bus pass that comes through the post. Tbf Swift is all over the place nowadays so no surprise NBus is not as popular now. Family members who use Swift say they regretted having it now after the constant problems they have with it.

Oh i do apologise @Jack that I've been at a wedding! Secondly, I'm not even going to justify the twoddle that these two are spewing.

Nbus has been swift only for over a year, posters have been on the buses for that time, so thats on you @V89MOA.

Swift isn't a finished product, nor has it even been proclaimed to be. It's being developed day by day. But proves a reduction in fraud and not only that, makes life essier for both drivers and passengers.  Being able to buy the ticket you want without having to identify the nearest travelshop or newsagents is a fantastic assest.

@Jack, i can't see any real valid reason as to why you'd refuse to have a swift card. Do you have any actual proof that nBus is not popular anymore?

@james99 you made the mistake by not contacting Swift on Twitter. They'd be able to advise better regarding specific ticketing claims. Also your issue with sorting your swift card is an issue that i honestly have not crossed. The ticketing department is extremely busy and work tirelessly to help every single customer. It's not always a straight forward solution. So can take time to discover.

[Jack]

Speaking of the top up machines... I believe theres none in the Sutton Coldfield or Erdington area.

The top up machines on the Walsall Road are most of the time 'out of order'. Come to think of it there's no top up machines in Perry Beeches.

Oh i do apologise @Jack that I've been at a wedding! Secondly, I'm not even going to justify the twoddle that these two are spewing.

Nbus has been swift only for over a year, posters have been on the buses for that time, so thats on you @V89MOA.

Swift isn't a finished product, nor has it even been proclaimed to be. It's being developed day by day. But proves a reduction in fraud and not only that, makes life essier for both drivers and passengers.  Being able to buy the ticket you want without having to identify the nearest travelshop or newsagents is a fantastic assest.

@Jack, i can't see any real valid reason as to why you'd refuse to have a swift card. Do you have any actual proof that nBus is not popular anymore?

@james99 you made the mistake by not contacting Swift on Twitter. They'd be able to advise better regarding specific ticketing claims. Also your issue with sorting your swift card is an issue that i honestly have not crossed. The ticketing department is extremely busy and work tirelessly to help every single customer. It's not always a straight forward solution. So can take time to discover.

Fyi I'm not spewing trouble! I'm making my opinion clear tyvm!

With the trouble that Swift has caused, why should I upgrade to one exactly?

[V89MOA]

Nbus has been swift only for over a year, posters have been on the buses for that time, so thats on you @V89MOA.

Oh Yeah how dare I break the swift machine four days ahead of trying to buy a pass!

The whole swift system needs to go and a brand new smarter system introduced, perhaps a more railway friendly one! Seriously we are living in 2018 you can pay for bus travel with credit cards but a smartcard that works is too much to ask? No let's just waste money on white elephants rather than a core issue that genuinely would make travel easier for people...London's smartcard system is brilliant, ours is like something from The Flintstones.

[james99]

Oh Yeah how dare I break the swift machine four days ahead of trying to buy a pass!

The whole swift system needs to go and a brand new smarter system introduced, perhaps a more railway friendly one! Seriously we are living in 2018 you can pay for bus travel with credit cards but a smartcard that works is too much to ask? No let's just waste money on white elephants rather than a core issue that genuinely would make travel easier for people...London's smartcard system is brilliant, ours is like something from The Flintstones.

I think an NX only smart card for NX season tickets should be introduced that's specifically designed to work with the Init system... but that probably won't happen with all of this integration.
NX could easily do a better job - afterall, they've got a good contactless system using init.

Oh and by integration... I see fare rises as I wouldn't be surprised if TfWM try and get rid of operator specific tickets.
And the current NBus monthly is more expensive than NX one.

@V89MOA is right... Totally frivolously wasting money (and charging the passengers more so no benefit to them).