The Government wants a "mother brand" for all public transport: this is how it will affect Rodalies and FGC

BarcelonaNew strategy underway to transform the image of public transport in Catalonia. The Department of Territory wants to unify all public transport in Catalonia into a single brand or "umbrella brand," which is currently "fragmented" into different identities. This is stated in a tender that was made public this week, in which the Government is looking for a company to be commissioned with the "conceptualization, design, and creation" of this new brand and the development of a "manual" for its use. The budget is just over 250,000 euros and the deadline to have the new image defined is six months.

According to the report included in the tender, the current transport network presents "a high degree of fragmentation and a lack of global coherence, the result of a non-homogeneous evolution over time, which hinders its understanding by the public." The objective, the text indicates, is to "project a unified image of public transport as an essential and strategic service for the country," at a time of many changes marked "by the transfer of the Rodalies service" and the T-Mobilitat.

The tender provides for a new brand and visual identity for four distinct areas: bus, bicycle, infrastructure, and rail transport. And this is where the big change lies. For years, the bus sector has effectively been calling for a certain homogenization of both the Government's own brands (such as Exprés.cat, Clic.cat, or Connect) and the vehicles, with vinyls, colors, and logos that allow one to recognize at a glance that it is a scheduled bus. Now, however, the tender also includes trains, that is, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) and Rodalies de Catalunya. Also listed in the tender are Ifercat and Cimalsa, and Generalitat infrastructures operated by other companies that do not depend directly on it, such as the tram and the metro. Thus, the intention is for all services to have a single corporate identity "that will act as a backbone," while maintaining the current operators –including FGC and Renfe for Rodalies– without changes.

A three-phase visual process

According to the document, at the end of the process all current brands (the own ones and those of the different operators) will continue to exist, but under the same umbrella which, on a strictly visual scale, will give more importance to the service owner's brand, that is, the Generalitat.

The tender also provides for how to implement this change. It will be done with "a three-phase roadmap". Once the new "master brand" for Catalan transport is defined, this image will coexist for a time with the current ones. In a second phase, a moment of hybridization will occur, in which an attempt will be made to converge the different image models, and, finally, a unification is foreseen.

In the railway sector, this change will necessarily have to be very gradual. Among other reasons, Catalonia expectsthe imminent arrival of a hundred new trains for Rodalies. These new convoys, which should serve to give breathing room to the network and help reduce incidents, are arriving with a delay –initially their entry into service was expected in 2025–, but currently there are already some that are in the testing phase. They will be included in the network progressively, over the coming years, and will obviously arrive branded with the current model, prior to the changes projected by this new tender.