Arriva North West

Arriva North West

VDL/Wright Pulsar 2 in Liverpool in June 2014
Parent Arriva
Founded 2009
Headquarters Aintree
Locale North West England
Service area Merseyside
Cheshire
Greater Manchester
Lancashire
Service type Bus services
Hubs Bolton
Liverpool
Macclesfield
Manchester
Runcorn
St Helens
Southport
Widnes
Fleet 809 active vehicles
(February 2016)[1]
Website Arriva North West

Arriva North West[2][3] is a bus operator running services in North West England. It is a subsidiary of Arriva.

History

Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 bodied Volvo B5L in Liverpool in March 2014
Wright Gemini 2 bodied VDL DB300s in Speke in October 2011
Plaxton President bodied Dennis Trident 2 in July 2010

Arriva North West was originally formed following the split of Ribble Motor Services in preparation for privatisation in 1986,[4] with the operations in Merseyside, West Lancashire and Wigan trading as North Western. The name was taken from the former North Western operations, which ran between 1923 and 1976. In 1988 the North Western operations were sold to Drawlane who was later sold to British Bus,[5] who also took over the operations of the Bee Line Buzz Company, who ran services in Greater Manchester. In 1996, British Bus was bought by the Cowie Group. In November 1997 Cowie was rebranded as Arriva with North Western becoming Arriva North West in 1998.

In February 2000, Arriva North West purchased MTL Trust Holdings, which created a larger presence in the Merseyside area and more than doubled the size of the company. In 2002, Arriva North West merged with Arriva Cymru to form Arriva North West & Wales. Three former Arriva Midlands depots in Crewe, Macclesfield and Winsford were transferred into the North West & Wales operation, although Crewe closed in December 2005.[4][6]

In July 2005 Arriva purchased Blue Bus of Bolton,[7] which almost doubled their presence in Greater Manchester. In January 2009, the Wales operation was split from Arriva North West as Arriva Buses Wales with the Arriva North West name resurrected for the North West England operations.[4][8]

Although the company is officially known as Arriva North West, some operations were originally registered under alternative Arriva names. Former Bee Line operations were registered as Arriva Manchester, some Liverpool operations and, slightly confusingly, the former Blue Bus operations were registered as Arriva Liverpool. As of Autumn 2011 a large proportion of services in Merseyside remain registered under the separate Arriva Merseyside[2] licence, all other services are registered under the Arriva North West licence.[3]

Operating centres

The company has depots in:

Past depots, now closed or sold, have included:

Fleet

As at February 2016 the fleet consists of approximately 809 active vehicles.[1] A wide variety of makes and types are represented, although DAF and VDL chassis predominate, accounting for around 52% of the fleet, and over half of the fleet carries bodywork by Wrightbus. The fleet is about 54% single-deck and entirely low-floor. Arriva stated its intention to make its main routes serving Liverpool completely low-floor by 2008 and similarly for the whole of Merseyside by 2011.[9]

Fleet summary

Double deck

Alexander Dennis Enviro400 in Liverpool in March 2009

On the double-deck side of the fleet 128 Alexander Dennis Enviro400s entered service at Bootle, Green Lane, Speke, St Helens and Southport depots in between mid 2014 and mid 2015. With 152 examples overall it is the most common double deck type in the fleet.

Other deliveries include 44 Volvo B5L hybrids with Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 bodywork - which are currently the only hybrid vehicles in the fleet - entered service at Bolton and Birkenhead depots in spring 2013 - 11 at Bolton and 33 at Birkenhead for "Cross River" branded services.[10]

A total of 47 new VDL DB300s with Wright Gemini 2 bodywork were delivered to Speke and Winsford depots towards the end of 2011 and early 2012. The bulk of the order - 44 buses - going to Speke depot. Prior to this, thirty-five Alexander Dennis Enviro400s entered service in 2009, mainly displacing Volvo Olympians. Twenty-three of the Enviro400s were for routes through the Mersey Tunnels, these being the first vehicles in the fleet to carry the interurban (now standard) variant of Arriva livery, apart from a solitary demonstrator. The other twelve were for services between Bootle and Aigburth Vale.

Previously, 30 Volvo B7TLs with Alexander ALX400 bodywork had entered service on routes between Liverpool and Garston in 2006, marking the end of a 7½ year hiatus of new double-deckers. In recent times the double deck fleet has been boosted by 25 DAF DB250s with Plaxton President bodywork and 17 Wright Eclipse Gemini-bodied Volvo B7TLs from Arriva London.

Single deck

Wright Axcess-Ultralow bodied Scania L113CRL in September 2009

The standard single deck vehicle in the fleet is the VDL SB200 with Commander, Pulsar and Pulsar 2 bodywork; between them, these types now make up nearly two thirds (59%) of the single deck fleet. The second most prominent single deck type in the fleet is the DAF/VDL SB120 with Wright Cadet bodywork. The Dennis Dart - which once made up a significant part of the fleet - is now much less common with just five vehicles of this type in service as of February 2016. Other types in the fleet are the Wright Renown bodied Volvo B10BLE and the DAF SB220 with East Lancs Myllennium bodywork. Other new deliveries since 2007 have included ten Alexander Dennis Enviro300s, four Alexander Dennis Enviro200 Darts, fifteen Optare Solos, twenty six Optare Solo SRs, ten MAN EcoCity gas powered buses[11] and six Wright StreetLites.

Unusual vehicles

Mercedes-Benz Citaro O530G at Liverpool South Parkway in July 2011

Unusual vehicles in the fleet include four MAN 14.220s with East Lancs Myllennium bodywork which are based at Bolton depot. Until October 2008, twelve Neoplan N4016 were operating on service 18A from Liverpool to Croxteth Park, and were the only vehicles of their type in Britain - as well as three smaller Neoplan N4009 midibuses. Until early 2016 a batch of three Ikarus Polaris bodied DAF SB220s were operated on services in Bolton. These were the remaining examples out of seven that were acquired with the Blue Bus fleet, which accounted for a majority of those imported to the UK.

Speke depot received a total of ten Mercedes-Benz Citaro articulated buses from Arriva London in 2011. Two branded vehicles arrived for use on the AirLink 501 route in June 2011,[12] and from September 2011, a further eight standard livery examples found use on service 699 between the University of Liverpool and Carnatic Halls. In November 2011, articulated vehicles were first used on the AirLink 500 route between Liverpool city centre and Liverpool John Lennon Airport. These vehicles left the fleet in 2014.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Fleet Lists". 16 March 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 Companies House extract company no 1990871 Arriva Merseyside Limited formerly Merseyside Transport Limited
  3. 1 2 Companies House extract company no 523376 Arriva North West Limited formerly North Western Road Car Company Limited
  4. 1 2 3 Arriva North West - History Arriva
  5. ↑ Companies House extract company no 2756786 British Bus Limited formerly British Bus plc
  6. ↑ Arriva news ukbusinesspark.co.uk
  7. ↑ Nicholas Lawley. "Blue Bus - A Short History". Freewebs. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
  8. ↑ Arriva names managing director for Arriva Buses Wales Arriva 10 November 2008
  9. ↑ "Arriva calls for support to deliver its vision for Merseyside". Arriva press releases. Archived from the original on 9 December 2007. Retrieved 18 November 2007.
  10. ↑ Harrison, Thomas. "The launch of the Cross River Hybrid". The North West Bus Blog. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  11. ↑ "Arriva goes green as the first gas buses arrive in Runcorn". Arriva North West. Archived from the original on 8 March 2014. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
  12. ↑ "Arriva Mercedes Artics on route 501". Merseyside Dennis Dart Website. Retrieved 2 July 2011.

External links

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