Dear Martijn

Thursday 14th August 2025

An open letter to Martijn Gilbert, Managing Director Arriva UK Bus

As you begin your exciting new role next Monday I thought I’d drop you a line with a few thoughts based on impressions I’ve gained from extensive travel experiences with Arriva over the last few years.

Let me say from the outset I’m absolutely delighted you’ve been appointed to this important position in the Arriva Group. It’s a well deserved promotion to a very key role in the bus industry.

I know from our friendship over many years just how passionate you are about providing an excellent standard of service for commercial success and, crucially, what it’s like from the passenger’s point of view to travel by bus as well as the all important need to maintain excellent relations with a well motivated staff through first class communications.

Your skills are just what Arriva UK Bus has been crying out for for many years.

At this time It must feel like a daunting task with so much needing attention but I have every confidence you’ll soon be making an impact with improvements evident to both passengers and staff.

As you will also know from our experiences with the Young Bus Professionals network, Arriva is blessed with having a team of young, dedicated, keen, enthusiastic managers and I always note the bus drivers I meet when travelling around have always been interested in their work when I’ve had a brief chat with them when boarding and alighting or at termini.

What it seems to me has been lacking is strong leadership from the top from someone who absolutely understands what the bus industry is all about. So, at last that’s been put right.

I get the impression following the sale of the Group to I Squared Capital finally being completed last summer there’s now more scope to try commercial initiatives than under those last few uncertain years of DB ownership. If so, my first suggestion is a rather radical one, but I reckon the time is now right to ditch the Arriva brand for the Group’s UK bus operations and reintroduce much more meaningful localised branding.

Frankly, I don’t think the name ‘Arriva’ resonates with bus passengers at all. It sounds like an insurance company and I seem to recall was chosen as a word that would apply in multiple languages across the European continent but making it irrelevant to the many localised markets being served, especially in England and Wales.

Whereas First Bus and Stagecoach are currently obsessing about their new corporate identities, investing huge sums on a refreshed national livery and brand devised and justified by creative agencies using marketing gibberish that makes the fictional Perfect Curve agency in BBC’s spoof WIA comedy look sensible, I believe in contrast to this misguided approach, Arriva has a golden opportunity to truly relate to the communities it serves.

You couldn’t get a more bland livery than Arriva’s current pale blue colour scheme. It famously promotes its website rather than the company on the side of every bus, yet that website is the worst abomination across the whole public transport industry.

Indeed, a revamped website must be a top priority along with the rebranding of the business into local identities.

I’m sure you’re well aware of the embarrassing shortcomings from the current website, I’ve featured them in this blog over the last few years, but just try and find any bus timetable for any route and marvel at the complex presentation rendering it completely useless for passengers trying to work out how to get from A to B.

As evidence of its complete uselessness I thought I’d check out the announcement of your appointment so typed your name into the search box under the section called ‘News’, which seemed a logical place to find it, only to be presented with news about routes 1/1A between High Wycombe and Hemel Hempstead as the one result available.

You’ll know from your time at the Go-Ahead Group just how much goodwill is generated by local company names and brands. The very thought of names such as Brighton & Hove, Oxford Bus, Southern Vectis and others being ditched in favour of ‘The Go-Ahead Group’ is just inconceivable, and in similar vein I reckon it’s time to bring back much loved and respected names such as Maidstone & District, Southend Transport, London Country, Luton & District, Derby City Transport, Crosville and United for the appropriate operations within the Arriva portfolio. Maybe even Midland Red, if the name is still available, and MK Metro sounds just right for operations in the Milton Keynes area.

Go-Ahead uses Passenger for its websites. They’re clear and easy to navigate to a tried and tested format which takes account of regional branding and even areas within those regions – eg Oxford Bus/Thames Travel/Carousel. Both First and Stagecoach’s websites suffer from trying to show detailed localised information within one national corporate presentation – it just doesn’t work.

Seven years ago I wrote a similar blog to this one with an open letter addressed to Arriva’s then Chief Executive Manfred Rudhart urging him not to proceed with a plan for more centralised management and control within the UK Bus operations. Seven years on I have to say I’ve been proved right with the advice I gave at that time. Arriva has had to cede ‘territory’ and given up swathes of operations since that time, often because of a lack of locally based managers with the motivation and autonomy to take, or recommend, decisions to improve the commercial basis of the business. You can’t control localised bus operations with centralised commands.

That was back in 2018 before we had a National Bus Strategy, Bus Service Improvement Plans, a Buses Bill, franchising and Covid. In 2025 it’s even more important to have a team of locally based managers with the right status who can engage with local authorities and stakeholders and are part of the communities in which they live and work.

Arriva’s significant operations in the North East, West Yorkshire, Merseyside and North Wales will be subject to franchising over the next two to three years with the (non) distinctive Arriva brand disappearing in any event, as it has in London and Leicester, so now is a golden opportunity to grasp the nettle and reintroduce localised branding for the rest of the UK Bus portfolio along with a high profile presence in those communities with plentiful supplies of leaflets, timetables, a relevant, easy-to-use website and a manager.

I have every confidence in you Martijn and I know you’ll be up for the challenge.

All the very best to you.

Roger French

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