Reading Buses will celebrate 20 years of colour-coordinated bus route branding.

The initiative, aimed at making buses easier for people to navigate, started in 2004 with new buses and a fresh colour scheme.

The flagship 'route 17' was the first to undergo the transformation, becoming the 'purple 17' with its distinctive paintwork.

The success of this idea led to the introduction of a wide range of colours and identities for other routes, including claret 21, yellow 26, leopard 3, and lion 4.

A spokesperson for Reading Buses said: "Having individual route branding can be a tricky thing to keep going, but it benefits all our customers, from regular commuters to first-time customers.

"It’s also of benefit to visually impaired people and visitors to our town who can be sure that seeing a striking colour from a distance is their bus."

To mark the 20th anniversary of route branding, several former Reading Buses vehicles will return to Reading and operate on the purple 17, emerald 5 and 6, and berry 23 and 24 routes.

These special buses will run alongside the usual vehicles and will be free of charge to travel on.

They will have a special display in the front window.

The guest vehicles will look different from the regular Reading Buses as they will be in the colours of their current owners, Stephensons of Essex, Bluestar, and Salisbury Reds, who have lent the buses for the day.

The spokesperson added: "We also still have a couple of the original buses, 805 and 806, in our fleet (still here due to the Covid-19 pandemic) and they will be running on purple 17 as 'normal' buses."

The special buses will be free of charge to travel on, and there will be no need to tap on or off or show a concessionary pass.

However, all other buses will still need to be paid for as normal.