Rudman's city: Travel to work on a Robbie or how about a speedbus?

By BRIAN RUDMAN

What's the definition of an optimist? Answer: A city that holds a naming competition for a new rapid transit system before it has the money to pay for it, or owns the tracks on which it is to run.

For those of us who despair of ever seeing a decent Auckland commuter service up and running, a trip to the latest display in the old Central Post Office is a timely tonic.

On show are the 32 entries in the first phase of the "Auckland Region Passenger Network Branding and Theming Competition." Like the earlier Britomart station contest, the transport boffins are seeking our reaction to the proposals.

Successful passenger transport systems around the world use an integrated approach towards branding and theming. They adopt the approach of successful commercial organisations, such as Mobil or The Warehouse, labelling their trains, buses, tickets, stations, bus stops and staff with the distinctive company logo and colours.

Auckland designers have taken to this challenge with gusto, coming up with a range of ideas both old and new. Unoriginal and derivative and instantly catchy was one based around the word Metro - an urban transport identifier known the world over. Closer to home is the one based around the word Waka.

Two came up with MAX, as in Metropolitan Auckland Express/Expressways, one throwing in a cute cartoon mascot, Max the Pukeko. I was quite taken with Max, but back at work a colleague said if a personal name was going to be used it should be Robbie, after rapid transit visionary Sir Dove-Myer Robinson.

I guess I could get used to going off to catch a Robbie each morning, but would I really want to have him grinning at me, a la Colonel Sanders, from every bus stop and passing vehicle?

There are a couple of Go Aucklands, a Smartrail/bus etc, and a speedbus. There is also a Greenline Rapid Transit from someone obviously too young to remember the rattletrap old Greenline Buses that once fumed and spluttered their way cross-country from south to west Auckland.

What some entrants have ignored all together, and most of the others rather glossed over, is the commercial reality of the Auckland situation - one in which competing private operators will run the services and the vast majority of the region's bus stops are provided for free for the next 20 years in return for the contractor using them as roadside billboards.

Talking of advertising, there's also the little matter of advertising on buses - some of which covers the entire vehicle.

Stagecoach Auckland marketing manager Russell Turnbull, a judge in the design contest, agrees that he and Auckland's other transport operators are concerned about what will happen to their brand within the overall regional transit brand.

One solution would be the London answer, which maintains a uniform livery, and relegates the name of the private contractor to a simple "proudly operated by ... " side-panel footnote.

That would be the sensible way to go. Persuading potential customers that Metro or Max or Robbie is everywhere will be a crucial marketing tool in getting them out of their cars. Uniform branding is a key to that.

In light of this, the region and Adshell, the bus stop providers, met last week to discuss how the transit system's logo could be incorporated into new and existing shelters.

Another big test will be just how willing private operators, with an international brand to protect, are to reduce or remove their own brands.

Of course, if it was part of their contract conditions, they could like it or lump it.

Browsing around the contest entries, one could almost pretend the solution to Auckland's rapid transit problem was almost upon us. Then I remembered my memorable bus trip across town the previous evening.

In Newmarket just after 4.30 I decided to jump on the Link bus - the once-every-10-minute "success story" - and zip across town to Ponsonby. Silly me.

No bus in sight, I headed along the Link route up Khyber Pass, keeping an eye out for rain clouds and the bus.

At Park Rd and still no bus, I walked the route around to the bus stop outside the hospital demolition site. By then it was raining so I waited. And waited. Finally, at 5.20 pm, the Link ambled up. We got to Three Lamps, Ponsonby a fraction before 6 pm. Rapid Transit, where art thou?