- Trent Barton My Paper Buses For Sale
- Trent Barton My Paper Buses Online
- Trent Barton My Paper Buses Near Me
Trent barton is not your typical bus company. Later this month, it will roll out the long-awaited and much anticipated i4 concept – something of a revolution for the company.
Trent Barton, along with other Midlands fleets, have never been that well covered by myself on travels. Shame, and down to nobody but me. These images are taken in June 2004 and June 2018 on two separate visits to Nottingham. Trent Barton operates largely within Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, offering fast and stylish buses across their network.
We interviewed Alex Hornby, Commercial Director at trent barton, to find out a little more about the company's new direction.
What makes trent barton so special? At the end of the day, to most people, it's just another bus company. There is, however, a difference. Trent barton understands its customers like no other.
To get to grips with i4, you first have to understand a little about the way the company is actually run.
There's no ‘fat controller' sat behind a desk in Heanor, ordering buses and people around. No huge fleet of corporate-liveried vehicles. No army of eastern-European drivers waiting to be shoved onto whichever route needs them the most.
Instead, each ‘brand' (route) is managed by a ‘team leader'. There's a dedicated team of drivers. And of course, those special route-liveried vehicles. This is where trent barton has built its reputation. Micro-management can often be a bad thing, but in this case, it works. The simplicity in the structure of the management ensures that the customer can very easily heard, either via speaking to the driver, or a simple tweet!
Trent Barton My Paper Buses For Sale
It's this philosophy which gave birth to the Rainbow concept, which in turn spawned the company as we see it today.
Rainbow was an initiative taken in the early 1990's after much market research. It aimed to give the customer exactly what they said they wanted, and meant a dedicated team of drivers, the famous ‘money back guarantee' and of course, fully branded, route-specific buses. Forward time almost 15 years, and Alex says; ‘Now, every route is a Rainbow route…the brand isn't as relevant as it was; it's outlived itself'.
Route branding back then was relatively new. Even now, the practice isn't seen on a remarkable scale. Sure, companies applying route vinyls to vehicles is commonplace – but how many times have you seen one of First's Overground vehicles on a different route to that which is plastered on the side? And how many customers have seen their driver more than once?
‘Our drivers are like celebs with the customers' remarks Alex. ‘Drivers actually know our customers by name, and vice versa!'.
However, the level of brand management which trent barton have created is about far more than simply painting buses different colours.
‘I call it the Cadburys effect', says Alex. ‘Cadburys refer to their products as Wispa, Crunchie and Dairy Milk. They're all in different coloured wrappers…and are instantly recognisable. It's the same with our brands'.
He's got a point.
Essentially, route numbers are codes. You wouldn't find Cadbury, Nestlé or any other esteemed confectionery manufacturer naming its products by the internal factory code. Somehow, we don't think the ‘Product Code RM2207 500g Kid' would ever have worked on the same level as the Milky Bar Kid once did. ‘The moment Cadburys' start calling their chocolate bars 'chocolate bar number 43'', remarks Alex, ‘is the moment when we'll have another think about what we're doing…'.
How many other bus companies can compare their services to a Kit Kat?
So, back to i4, then – and the question: how does a bus company go about changing the Rainbow brand, something which has been ingrained into their customers' skulls for the best part of 15 years? Well, as Alex puts it – 'It's about educating the regular users'.
One of the purposes of the i4 drip-feed and teaser campaign was to ‘ease the customers in' to the new branding. After all, for the best part of 15 years now, the people of Borrowash, Sandiacre and Stapleford have been calling their service ‘Rainbow 4', ‘R4' or simply ‘the 4'. Unlike with the launch of indigo a few years back, where they simply swapped all the old buses over in one night with little explanation, trent barton have employed a full-on campaign to ‘educate' them with the changes to their service.
The i4 story actually started well in advance of the launch date, and comprised of a huge cross-media campaign. ‘Out with the old' and ‘i am on my way' were straplines used across bus shelters, the website, flyers, and even the Rainbow buses themselves.
But where did the name ‘i4' come from in the first place? ‘i4 Avast for mac. just rolled off the tongue' laughs Alex. ‘We thought i4 sounded great…we just had to come up with a meaning for it!'.
And that they did. The i4 concept isn't a huge revolution for trent barton, but a recommitment to the customer and the original values of the company. The campaign focused heavily on putting the customer first – from the branding, to the logo change, to the public photoshoots to find the faces of the new brand.
Stock photography is out of the window – literally – and as such, all of the faces you'll see plastered inside and out of the buses are actual, real trent barton customers. So, don't be surprised if you're travelling on i4 and end up sitting next to the chap who's face is also printed on the banner above your head. Autograph books at the ready.
i4 doesn't just signal a change in image for one route; rather it sparks off a whole new image for trent barton itself. There's a new font – a bespoke design from Best Impressions – which appears softer and friendlier. And of course, the new logo which replaces the familiar trent barton ‘bow'. Research showed that most customers actually had no idea what the ‘bow' was (many seemed to think it was a ‘squiggle', or simply didn't notice it at all. And from trent barton's point of view, it never actually represented what the company stood for.
So the new logo – shown below on our first pictures of the i4 buses – is a collection of circles, with the signature trent red forming the hollowed out ‘o'. Rainbow maybe disappearing, but its spirit lives on in the new logo. There's also the trent barton ‘people' (yet to be named…) – a collection of multicoloured helpers, which have begun appearing across the web and the vehicles themselves, building the brand right in front of the customer. Expect to see more of them in the future.
The new image will be gradually rolled out across trent barton's brands as they're updated and upgraded, rather than undertaking the costly task of bashing it out in one go.
Social media plays a massive part in trent barton's customer service and education strategy. As Alex puts it, ‘why should our Twitter feed have a closing time? People don't stop tweeting at 5pm, so neither do we'. The whole philosophy of communicating with the customer on their own terms seems to be working well for the company – people are more engaged than ever, and are certainly braver when it comes to offering ‘feedback' over social media. Twitter, in particular.
It quite often strikes us here at transportdesigned as fairly worrying that nobody else is really picking up on this – with the exception of a few select transport companies, such as London Midland. The industry really does seem to be missing a trick here – the very fact that trent barton has made it onto this year's Social Brands 100 shortlist (almost) uncontested by any other bus companies speaks volumes.
With i4, trent barton have taken digital engagement to the next level. Not content with creating hashtags online, they're hitting their rather bored, and somewhat captive audience whilst actually en route. i4 takes hashtags to the customer. They're literally plastered all over the vehicles. Where previously there may have been a notice asking the passenger to ‘send your thoughts to PO Box 40, the trash can in our office', there's simply a notice asking the customer to tweet #i4thought. There was also #newbus4nottingham throughout the i4 launch campaign – clearly a nod to London's own Borismaster revolution. It's quick, it's clever, it's exactly what the audience are going to do. Especially with the price of stamps going through the roof.
It's clear to see why trent barton is doing so well in 2012, and why passenger numbers are increasing by 45% in some cases across its network. Digital engagement has largely been overlooked by the transport sector in the past. People aren't tempted out of their cars by battered, dirty buses, high fares and rude drivers. Even worse for those who have no choice is when they feel they can't report a rude driver because their email will get caught in a load of red tape, and they'll likely never receive a reply anyway. Trent barton seems to have found a way to engage with customers – both on the ground and in cyberspace.
Trent Barton My Paper Buses Online
But digital engagement can only go so far – people still aren't going to want to travel on a scruffy, woebegone vehicle, no matter how good the customer services teams' tweets are. Customers want to feel safe, invited, and valued – something which i4 is the very embodiment of. The rest of the industry should sit up and take note.
Our thanks to Alex Hornby and team trent barton for inviting us to their offices for a chat.
Never miss a post again! Follow Transport Designed on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram to get updates in your news feed.
Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMC in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire in 2019 | |
| Slogan | the really good bus company |
|---|---|
| Parent | Wellglade Group |
| Founded | October 1913; 107 years ago |
| Headquarters | Heanor |
| Locale | Nottinghamshire Derbyshire Leicestershire |
| Service area | Derbyshire Leicestershire Nottinghamshire Staffordshire |
| Service type | Bus services |
| Hubs | Nottingham and Derby |
| Depots | 5 |
| Chief executive | Jeff Counsell |
| Website | www.trentbarton.co.uk |
Trent Barton, stylised as trentbarton, is a bus operator based in Heanor, Derbyshire. A combination of the Trent Motor Traction Company and Barton Buses Limited,[1] it is the major operating division of the Wellglade Group.
History[edit]
In October 1913, Trent Motor Traction Company[2] was founded and commenced operating a bus service between Derby and Ashbourne. In November 1913, a second service commenced to Stapleford. By 1925 services were operating from Derby, Loughborough and Nottingham. As services expanded the business grew to seven depots.[3]
During the 1930s some 52 smaller operators were bought out. In August 1949 Trent Motor Traction Company began to operate some services in partnership with Derby Corporation. In 1958 following the opening of the A52 an express service commenced between Derby and Nottingham. In 1969 the company became part of the National Bus Company.[3]
As part of the privatisation of the bus industry Trent was sold in a management buyout. In 1989 the business of neighbouring Barton Transport was purchased and placed into a separate legal entity[4] even though both subsidiaries combined their operations on a day-to-day basis. The separate Trent and Barton brands were brought together as 'Trent Barton' in 2005.[3]
Trent Barton maintains a 6% shareholding in First Leicester.[5][6]
Services and brands[edit]
Trentbarton operate services from Loughborough, Ashbourne, Burton upon Trent, Chesterfield, Derby, Ilkeston, Mansfield, and Nottingham with most operating under a brand name with branded vehicles although some still use conventional route numbers, Some services within the network operate through to around 03:00 on Saturday and Sunday mornings.[citation needed]
'indigo' became the first route to operate a '24 hours a day, 7 days a week' from 24th July 2011[7] until March 2012 it also operated between East Midlands Airport and Loughborough when that section of the route was replaced by a revised 'skylink Nottingham' service which runs between Nottingham and East Midlands Airport but via a quicker route.[citation needed]
Buses operate from Nottingham to the suburbs of Calverton, Cotgrave and Keyworth while the 'mainline' and 'rushcliffe villager' run along the A52 to Bingham and Radcliffe-on-Trent.
In Derby, Trent Barton run some urban services, such as the non-stop 'spondon flyer' service, and 'the mickleover' and 'the allestree'. There are also a number of longer distance services for example 'swift' to Uttoxeter and 'the sixes' to Belper and Matlock with their unusual numbering system: 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6X. 'the villager' services run south to Burton on Trent with the numbering system V1 and V3 plus a number of services run north towards Ilkeston and Heanor such as the 'black cat' and 'H1'.
Trent Barton also operates a number of express services around the East Midlands. These include:
- 'red arrow' service from Nottingham to Derby.
- X38 (operated jointly with Arriva Derby) from Derby to Burton on Trent
- the comet from Chesterfield to Derby via Clay Cross and Alfreton and Ripley
- 'RapidOne' between Ripley and Nottingham fast along the A612 (until 29 March 2020) [8]
- 'pronto' between Chesterfield, Mansfield and Nottingham fast along the A60 (until February 15 2020) after ending the partnership with Stagecoach in Mansfield. [9]
In the 1990s and 2000s Trent Barton operated large number of 'rainbow routes', with frequent services running from Nottingham and Derby under route numbers such as 'R11, R12 and R13' from Nottingham to Eastwood and into Derbyshire, now known as 'rainbow one' or 'Rainbow Allestree' running from Derby to the village just outside town, now known as 'the allestree'. Most of the Rainbow routes were rebranded in the early 2000s leaving just 'Rainbow 1 to 5', running from 7 to 12 minutes from Nottingham to various suburban towns. These were then rebranded leaving just 'Rainbow One' as the remaining Rainbow brand.
Routes that operate with conventional numbers are generally operated by a pool of 'spare' vehicles that advertise the 'Mango' smartcard or the Zigzag day ticket, these vehicles also substitute for a branded vehicle if it is unavailable.
High Peak Buses[edit]
In April 2012 Trent Barton entered a 50/50 joint venture with Centrebus. This saw Trent Barton's Buxton operation combined with Bowers Coaches to form High Peak Buses.[10][11][12]
The joint company operates all services previously run by Bowers Coaches and the Buxton division of Trent Barton, including the Skyline 199 service from Buxton to Stockport and Manchester Airport, and Transpeak from Derby, Belper, Matlock, Bakewell, and Buxton. The service no longer serves Nottingham, this portion of the route being removed in late 2012. The Buxton to Manchester section was later withdrawn from 23 July 2018.
But where did the name ‘i4' come from in the first place? ‘i4 Avast for mac. just rolled off the tongue' laughs Alex. ‘We thought i4 sounded great…we just had to come up with a meaning for it!'.
And that they did. The i4 concept isn't a huge revolution for trent barton, but a recommitment to the customer and the original values of the company. The campaign focused heavily on putting the customer first – from the branding, to the logo change, to the public photoshoots to find the faces of the new brand.
Stock photography is out of the window – literally – and as such, all of the faces you'll see plastered inside and out of the buses are actual, real trent barton customers. So, don't be surprised if you're travelling on i4 and end up sitting next to the chap who's face is also printed on the banner above your head. Autograph books at the ready.
i4 doesn't just signal a change in image for one route; rather it sparks off a whole new image for trent barton itself. There's a new font – a bespoke design from Best Impressions – which appears softer and friendlier. And of course, the new logo which replaces the familiar trent barton ‘bow'. Research showed that most customers actually had no idea what the ‘bow' was (many seemed to think it was a ‘squiggle', or simply didn't notice it at all. And from trent barton's point of view, it never actually represented what the company stood for.
So the new logo – shown below on our first pictures of the i4 buses – is a collection of circles, with the signature trent red forming the hollowed out ‘o'. Rainbow maybe disappearing, but its spirit lives on in the new logo. There's also the trent barton ‘people' (yet to be named…) – a collection of multicoloured helpers, which have begun appearing across the web and the vehicles themselves, building the brand right in front of the customer. Expect to see more of them in the future.
The new image will be gradually rolled out across trent barton's brands as they're updated and upgraded, rather than undertaking the costly task of bashing it out in one go.
Social media plays a massive part in trent barton's customer service and education strategy. As Alex puts it, ‘why should our Twitter feed have a closing time? People don't stop tweeting at 5pm, so neither do we'. The whole philosophy of communicating with the customer on their own terms seems to be working well for the company – people are more engaged than ever, and are certainly braver when it comes to offering ‘feedback' over social media. Twitter, in particular.
It quite often strikes us here at transportdesigned as fairly worrying that nobody else is really picking up on this – with the exception of a few select transport companies, such as London Midland. The industry really does seem to be missing a trick here – the very fact that trent barton has made it onto this year's Social Brands 100 shortlist (almost) uncontested by any other bus companies speaks volumes.
With i4, trent barton have taken digital engagement to the next level. Not content with creating hashtags online, they're hitting their rather bored, and somewhat captive audience whilst actually en route. i4 takes hashtags to the customer. They're literally plastered all over the vehicles. Where previously there may have been a notice asking the passenger to ‘send your thoughts to PO Box 40, the trash can in our office', there's simply a notice asking the customer to tweet #i4thought. There was also #newbus4nottingham throughout the i4 launch campaign – clearly a nod to London's own Borismaster revolution. It's quick, it's clever, it's exactly what the audience are going to do. Especially with the price of stamps going through the roof.
It's clear to see why trent barton is doing so well in 2012, and why passenger numbers are increasing by 45% in some cases across its network. Digital engagement has largely been overlooked by the transport sector in the past. People aren't tempted out of their cars by battered, dirty buses, high fares and rude drivers. Even worse for those who have no choice is when they feel they can't report a rude driver because their email will get caught in a load of red tape, and they'll likely never receive a reply anyway. Trent barton seems to have found a way to engage with customers – both on the ground and in cyberspace.
Trent Barton My Paper Buses Online
But digital engagement can only go so far – people still aren't going to want to travel on a scruffy, woebegone vehicle, no matter how good the customer services teams' tweets are. Customers want to feel safe, invited, and valued – something which i4 is the very embodiment of. The rest of the industry should sit up and take note.
Our thanks to Alex Hornby and team trent barton for inviting us to their offices for a chat.
Never miss a post again! Follow Transport Designed on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram to get updates in your news feed.
Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMC in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire in 2019 | |
| Slogan | the really good bus company |
|---|---|
| Parent | Wellglade Group |
| Founded | October 1913; 107 years ago |
| Headquarters | Heanor |
| Locale | Nottinghamshire Derbyshire Leicestershire |
| Service area | Derbyshire Leicestershire Nottinghamshire Staffordshire |
| Service type | Bus services |
| Hubs | Nottingham and Derby |
| Depots | 5 |
| Chief executive | Jeff Counsell |
| Website | www.trentbarton.co.uk |
Trent Barton, stylised as trentbarton, is a bus operator based in Heanor, Derbyshire. A combination of the Trent Motor Traction Company and Barton Buses Limited,[1] it is the major operating division of the Wellglade Group.
History[edit]
In October 1913, Trent Motor Traction Company[2] was founded and commenced operating a bus service between Derby and Ashbourne. In November 1913, a second service commenced to Stapleford. By 1925 services were operating from Derby, Loughborough and Nottingham. As services expanded the business grew to seven depots.[3]
During the 1930s some 52 smaller operators were bought out. In August 1949 Trent Motor Traction Company began to operate some services in partnership with Derby Corporation. In 1958 following the opening of the A52 an express service commenced between Derby and Nottingham. In 1969 the company became part of the National Bus Company.[3]
As part of the privatisation of the bus industry Trent was sold in a management buyout. In 1989 the business of neighbouring Barton Transport was purchased and placed into a separate legal entity[4] even though both subsidiaries combined their operations on a day-to-day basis. The separate Trent and Barton brands were brought together as 'Trent Barton' in 2005.[3]
Trent Barton maintains a 6% shareholding in First Leicester.[5][6]
Services and brands[edit]
Trentbarton operate services from Loughborough, Ashbourne, Burton upon Trent, Chesterfield, Derby, Ilkeston, Mansfield, and Nottingham with most operating under a brand name with branded vehicles although some still use conventional route numbers, Some services within the network operate through to around 03:00 on Saturday and Sunday mornings.[citation needed]
'indigo' became the first route to operate a '24 hours a day, 7 days a week' from 24th July 2011[7] until March 2012 it also operated between East Midlands Airport and Loughborough when that section of the route was replaced by a revised 'skylink Nottingham' service which runs between Nottingham and East Midlands Airport but via a quicker route.[citation needed]
Buses operate from Nottingham to the suburbs of Calverton, Cotgrave and Keyworth while the 'mainline' and 'rushcliffe villager' run along the A52 to Bingham and Radcliffe-on-Trent.
In Derby, Trent Barton run some urban services, such as the non-stop 'spondon flyer' service, and 'the mickleover' and 'the allestree'. There are also a number of longer distance services for example 'swift' to Uttoxeter and 'the sixes' to Belper and Matlock with their unusual numbering system: 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6X. 'the villager' services run south to Burton on Trent with the numbering system V1 and V3 plus a number of services run north towards Ilkeston and Heanor such as the 'black cat' and 'H1'.
Trent Barton also operates a number of express services around the East Midlands. These include:
- 'red arrow' service from Nottingham to Derby.
- X38 (operated jointly with Arriva Derby) from Derby to Burton on Trent
- the comet from Chesterfield to Derby via Clay Cross and Alfreton and Ripley
- 'RapidOne' between Ripley and Nottingham fast along the A612 (until 29 March 2020) [8]
- 'pronto' between Chesterfield, Mansfield and Nottingham fast along the A60 (until February 15 2020) after ending the partnership with Stagecoach in Mansfield. [9]
In the 1990s and 2000s Trent Barton operated large number of 'rainbow routes', with frequent services running from Nottingham and Derby under route numbers such as 'R11, R12 and R13' from Nottingham to Eastwood and into Derbyshire, now known as 'rainbow one' or 'Rainbow Allestree' running from Derby to the village just outside town, now known as 'the allestree'. Most of the Rainbow routes were rebranded in the early 2000s leaving just 'Rainbow 1 to 5', running from 7 to 12 minutes from Nottingham to various suburban towns. These were then rebranded leaving just 'Rainbow One' as the remaining Rainbow brand.
Routes that operate with conventional numbers are generally operated by a pool of 'spare' vehicles that advertise the 'Mango' smartcard or the Zigzag day ticket, these vehicles also substitute for a branded vehicle if it is unavailable.
High Peak Buses[edit]
In April 2012 Trent Barton entered a 50/50 joint venture with Centrebus. This saw Trent Barton's Buxton operation combined with Bowers Coaches to form High Peak Buses.[10][11][12]
The joint company operates all services previously run by Bowers Coaches and the Buxton division of Trent Barton, including the Skyline 199 service from Buxton to Stockport and Manchester Airport, and Transpeak from Derby, Belper, Matlock, Bakewell, and Buxton. The service no longer serves Nottingham, this portion of the route being removed in late 2012. The Buxton to Manchester section was later withdrawn from 23 July 2018.
Ticketing schemes[edit]
The 'Mango' system was initially tested on the company's Rainbow 4 (now i4) and Indigo routes. After this proved successful, Trent Barton proceeded to extend the scheme to all of its services.[13][14]
Depot[edit]
Trent Barton operates from depots in Derby, Langley Mill, Belper, Nottingham and Sutton in Ashfield with the Kinchbus depot in Loughborough as an outstation for some Skylink Nottingham buses.[15]
Langley Mill depot is also the headquarters for trentbarton and Wellglade Group.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'Terms and conditions: general conditions of carriage'. www.trentbarton.co.uk. Heanor: Trent Motor Traction Company. Archived from the original on 26 January 2019. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
- ^Companies House extract company no 131912 Traction Motor Traction Company Limited
- ^ abcHistory Trent Barton
- ^Companies House extract company no 2347412 Barton Buses Limited
- ^Government Approves 19th Bus Sale of Leicester Citybus LtdLocal Government Chronicle 15 November 1993
- ^FirstGroup Annual Report March 2013 FirstGroup
- ^Indigo buses to run right through the night
- ^{https://www.trentbarton.co.uk/news-and-media/our-news/article/rapidonewavesgoodbye2020}
- ^{https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/east-midlands/pronto}
- ^Companies House extract company no 7623806 High Peak Buses Limited
- ^Wellglade/Centrebus join up in BuxtonArchived 22 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine busandcoach.com 24 May 2011
- ^New bus operator hits the road Trentbarton
- ^Trent Barton starts rollout with integrated solution Init June 2008
- ^Bus heartbeatsArchived 23 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine busandcoach.com 12 December 2012
- ^'About the Wellglade group'. Derby Bus Depot.
External links[edit]
- Media related to trentbarton (bus company) at Wikimedia Commons
Trent Barton My Paper Buses Near Me
