‘Voices of Bradford’ put accent on trip for First Bus city fleet

Millions of visitors to Bradford for this year’s City of Culture events and local people travelling will now get a special welcome when boarding a bus in the First Bus fleet.

The operator has teamed up with the BBC’s New Voices winners to record messages announcing the trip destination in the unique style of the three women who are the ‘voices of Bradford’.

Irene Kaali, 30, Humaira Bham, 25, and Olivia Wright, 25, spent hours in the recording studios at BBC Radio Leeds to complete the messages which are now being played across the First Bus fleet of 160 buses covering 35 routes throughout Bradford and to outlying areas including Leeds and Halifax.

Each welcome ends with “in the UK’s city of culture” to promote the celebration of culture, arts and entertainment festival which is ramping up this summer to the end of the year.

And Irene and Humaira took a special trip around the city on the ‘Loading Bay’ bus, one of the branded buses provided by First Bus as an Official Travel Partner, to hear the final results of their work after the network and operations teams uploaded the recordings.

Irene said: “It’s brilliant to listen to it for the first time, a Bradfordian voice telling everyone where they’re going!”

She said that her family were all eager to hear her but added: “I’ve told my nephew and niece that they have to travel with me, so we’ll being catching the 640 service soon.”

Humaira said all three were astonished when the BBC told them about the First Bus idea. “We were stoked. It was amazing to think that people will be hearing our voices every day.

“I grew up in Batley and travelled into Bradford on the bus all the time when I was young. Never did I think that something like this would happen.”

Megan Hope, Operations Director of First Bus in West Yorkshire, said: “We have to give a big ‘thank you’ to the BBC and Irene, Humaira and Olivia for agreeing to the idea and helping us complete the recordings.

“The local accents give a genuine Bradford and Yorkshire touch to the announcements, which is a real change from the AI technology we normally use.

“All our drivers have said how happy and welcoming the three women’s voices sound, so that can only be good for our services and the City of Culture.”

Picture caption: Irene (left) and Humaira on their trip around Bradford to hear their voices playing on the bus welcome announcements.

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