Rising up to the challenge of its rivals (well, FirstGroup to be honest)
By the end of this year, the name Huddersfield Bus Company will no longer be seen on the streets of West Yorkshire. Centrebus Holdings has since been taken over by Arriva as a separate subsidiary. As a break from the old ways, Huddersfield Bus Company and Centrebus’ West Yorkshire services will operate under the name of Yorkshire Tiger.
In Greater Manchester, this will affect the scenic 528 service from Rochdale to Halifax via Ripponden. Instead of the white, orange and blue livery, Yorkshire Tiger’s fleet will be all orange with black stripes at the rear. Quite a departure from the norm, but one which could win over new passengers.
Other routes operated by Yorkshire Tiger include the 343 from Halifax to Huddersfield, which takes an equally circuitous route to its Greater Mancunian counterpart in Mossley. This also includes the former K-Line services to Quarmby, and the 737 service from Bradford Interchange to Leeds/Bradford Airport via Guiseley.
As well as the usual single and concessionary fares, you can travel on Yorkshire Tiger’s buses for £4.40, anywhere in the Metro West Yorkshire boundary. A weekly ticket will set you back £15.00, or £10.00 for travel within the Leeds Green Zone. All weekly passes and day saver tickets are available at half fare for children.
If You Really Love Their Tiger Fleet…
The new look will be seen on its buses from tomorrow. For further information, their website is www.yorkshiretiger.co.uk, and you can follow them on Twitter under @YorksTigerBus. Furthermore, Yorkshire Tiger will be happy to share any pictures of their buses in action. There’s no doubt that the guy from East of the M60 may contribute, and some appear on this microcosm of server space!
S.V., 07 October 2013.
East of the M60 
Interesting that they’re not simply slapping the Arriva brand on it all – although not without precedent. Down south Arriva have owned Tellings Golden Miller for several years, and never rebranded it. They also transferred an Arriva depot over there as well
LikeLike
Hi Andrew,
I love the idea of Yorkshire Tiger, with the branding style no less influenced by TrentBarton’s efforts. Or, staying with Arriva territory, the Sapphire brand on their route from Chester to Wrexham. Could it be that they are starting to recognise local branding a bit more, either by creating a completely new image (seen here), or reviving an old livery (with First PMT’s Badgerline livery returning to some routes in Stoke-on-Trent)?
I hope so because owing to the number of short journeys made by passengers, bus travel is something we do and regard along local lines. Hence the number of people who have fond memories of the PTE operators, municipal operators before then, and famed independents such as Yelloway or Lancashire United Transport. Even so, it still won’t be quite as local as Hebble ever was to them, as they would still be part of a bus owning group. Like Boddingtons Bitter before and after Whitbread took over.
Besides being a good rebranding exercise, I would say that repainting the buses orange and applying vinyl tiger stripes would also be more cost effective. Furthermore, buses leaving the Tiger fleet could have their stripes peeled off with little or no painting required for future owners.
Bye for now,
Stuart.
LikeLike
Sorry to correct you Andrew but it’s the 737 what runs from Bradford to LBA via Guiseley. The 757 runs from Leeds to LBA via the A65 through Horsforth and Rawdon then along Harrogate Road through the outskirts of Yeadon. Theirs also a 747 taking a more direct route from Bradford via the A658 and Yeadon to the Airport. Just to say not impressed with Yorkshire Tiger’s website, up until Yesterday the fares page was a cut and paste job from the old Centrebus website, one of the botched up fares was a £45 Leeds Weekly Green zone ticket! Centrebus fares for nationwide travel were also listed! This page has been corrected and improved significantly today however.The timetables page however is another cut and paste job from the old Centrebus website, lets hope this is improved.
LikeLike
sorry to correct myself, meant Stuart not Andrew!
LikeLike
Hi Leeds,
Thanks for the update. I have now changed the ‘5’ to a ‘3’. 🙂
As for the timetables and the website, I would say it is early days as yet. Even so, design wise, it knocks the spots and stripes off the bog standard Centrebus website. That is built using a Microsoft site builder from a Live.com account. (I also know from professional experience having had the ‘joy’ of doing on-page SEO on sites built with the same package)!
Might they go for the black and white to minimise printing costs to both Yorkshire Tiger and passengers printing off the times of the 737? My money’s on them adding the full Yorkshire Tiger branding to the timetables after their first set of service changes.
Bye for now,
Stuart.
LikeLike
I guess its a way of placing a new identity without having to buy much new paint as Yorkshire Tiger looks to be a variation of the Centrebus paint scheme. How long it actually lasts before it comes part of Arriva Yorkshire remains to be seen. K Line by the way is unaffected and will remain as it is for now, while Hinckley is now Arriva Midlands again. I suspect Arriva’s next purchase will be much closer to home from what I am lead to understand.
LikeLike
Hi Giles,
My thoughts exactly! Even so, this cheap and cheerful approach is most effective, no doubt enhanced by good choice of typography and the stripes at the rear. At least they’ve not thought of putting a tiger at the back (inspired by the badger which Badgerline used to put on their buses) as yet.
Bye for now,
Stuart.
LikeLike