I try and keep transport items in this blog relevant to the local area. Some do stray due to significance or as a result of places I've been and taken photographs. On this occasion the locality is down to the place where I work, Peterborough.
Stagecoach is the major bus operator in the city and also in neighbouring Cambridge; together both depots form the Stagecoach Cambridgeshire group. The group has undertaken a tv campaign to drum up additional patronage. Associated with the tv campaign is the unusual step of advertising on their own buses, where third-party adverts normally take prominence on the contravision adverts on double deckers. Normally the livery and fleet name itself is enough advertising to the exterior of a bus for its owner.
Despite working in Peterborough I live in Cleethorpes so have not seen the tv advert. Many friends and colleagues at the depot have and have commented on it. As the sole commercial operator in Peterborough and the dominant operator in Cambridge some have wondered exactly why Stagecoach feel the need to advertise - there is effectively no competition in either city. Without contacting the company's directors, I can only speculate that they plan not to rest on their laurels and are doing the right thing in terms of what is seen to be 'green and clean' and using the advertisements to create new bus users and in turn reduce pollution as well as up their profits.
Photo: Tim Brown
