A new fleet investment brings changes to a traditional name as Reading Buses refreshes and rebrands its Green Line routes
Reading Buses’ well-known Green Line services to London and Heathrow are set for a refresh, with new buses and a new brand. A £2.5m fleet of new Alexander Dennis buses will accompany a new name for the Green Line 702 and 703 routes. The 702 between Reading and London will become the London Line, whilst route 703, which serves Bracknell, Windsor, Slough and Heathrow Airport, becomes the Flight Line.
The routes will both carry the tag-line ‘Windsor Express’ to reflect the common sections of the 702 and 703 routes between Legoland, Windsor and Slough, and the buses will retain the familiar green of the previous services, which the operator says will help existing customers to easily adapt to the name change.
The new buses will include customary features such as seat-back USB and wireless charging points, free WiFi, ‘coffee shop style’ flooring, high-back seats and an area with tables on both decks. They will have a glazed staircase and roof to allow in more natural light as well as an upstairs ‘air chill’ system to help keep passengers cool on warmer days. An automated next stop audio/visual announcement system, external destination announcements and a driver PA system will also be fitted. The Flight Line buses will have an additional luggage rack to allow extra space for passengers’ luggage.
Reading Buses Chief Executive Officer Robert Williams said the company was ‘excited’ to have received its first fleet of brand-new buses since the pandemic: “We are excited to be able to announce this significant investment in our Windsor Express routes to Heathrow and London, and to reflect that with our new branding which closely aligns with the locations we serve,” he said. “We have worked very hard to achieve a really fantastic specification for the vehicles. We are conscious that the Green Line name has had a long association with routes in this area so we wanted to make sure that customers were not surprised by the change. We have retained a green colour scheme and ‘line’ naming to make the switch-over as seamless as possible in customers’ minds.”
The London Line name has its origins in the 1990s, when it was used by Reading Buses for coach services between Reading and London. Flight Line was used for London Country’s airport services in the 1980s, but was dropped during privatisation.
Arriva retained the trademark for Green Line following the privatisation of London Country into various companies in the 1980s, and Reading Buses has used the name under licence from Arriva since it took over the 702 in December 2017 in the same way that previous operator First had done. The revised brand therefore allows Reading Buses to break away from Arriva’s vision for Green Line, and have full control over the branding of its new fleet.
