Buses: at their best

10/09/2024 Ashleigh Sinclair Features

Transdev’s 36 is one of Britain’s best buses, and features on the new video documentary. TRANSDEV

A documentary video showcasing some of the best examples of bus provision in Britain has just been released on YouTube. Called ‘Britain’s buses at their best’ it’s been produced and edited by transport filmmaker Geoff Marshall for the Ten Per Cent Club, a group of free-thinking industry professionals, passionate about making bus travel ever better. Club Secretary Roger French explains the background to the video

As the regulatory structure of the industry changes we’re keen that those involved in the provision of buses understand the dynamics of what makes for an attractive service that’ll successfully encourage new passengers to travel and grow the market.

These ingredients are the same whoever controls bus networks, whether it be the private sector, a partnership approach or the public sector. We thought about producing a written document replicating and updating a publication we produced back in 2006 called ‘Routes to revenue growth’ which highlighted some of Britain’s most successful bus routes and identifying the key characteristics that made them stand out, but 18 years on, media and communications have changed dramatically, so although many of those features are still the same, we decided on producing something much more visual: a video.

Geoff Marshall has been creating engaging transport films and videos for several years so he was a natural choice to ask to make this documentary. With the help of Club members, in particular my colleague Julian Peddle at Centrebus and Ray Stenning at Best Impressions, we put together a brief identifying well known, and not so well known, examples that would take Geoff to different parts of the country experiencing first hand bus travel at the sharp end as well as meeting and interviewing the senior executives responsible for its provision and passengers.

The hardest task was deciding what to leave out as there are so many excellent examples of ‘Britain’s buses at their best.’ We could have made a documentary series, never mind just one half hour edition.