Difficult times?
Posted: 20:03 Tuesday 30th August 2016
As well as closing Stafford garage, cutting back at the fringes seems to be the order of the day at Arriva Midlands North, some of it seemingly due to competition.
During July the Telford - Wolverhampton direct service (8) was cut back to run Telford - Shifnal only. Banga Buses of Wolverhampton had come onto the route a few months before and presumably got a slice of the trade going.
At the start of September Stafford - Wolverhampton (76) will be withdrawn except on Sundays (Staffs contract). National Express West Midlands have been running a similar service which operates via the i54 site to the north of Wolverhampton. NXWM also operate a Wolverhampton - i54 - Cannock - Hednesford service, and Arriva are now halving its Wolverhampton - Cannock to hourly.
At the same time, Arriva are withdrawing its long-standing 116, Tamworth - Kingsbury - Birmingham. Central Buses will replace it with a new parallel X16. Tamworth - Kingsbury has had competition for a while, most recently from Central Buses, and Central will now have the upper hand.
This reduces the number of services Arriva runs into Birmingham to just one - the 110 Birmingham - Sutton Coldfield - Tamworth. Thankfully this is doing quite well, running every 15 minutes Mon-Sat (30 on Suns) and was restocked with new "Sapphire" Enviro 400s some 18 months ago.
During July the Telford - Wolverhampton direct service (8) was cut back to run Telford - Shifnal only. Banga Buses of Wolverhampton had come onto the route a few months before and presumably got a slice of the trade going.
At the start of September Stafford - Wolverhampton (76) will be withdrawn except on Sundays (Staffs contract). National Express West Midlands have been running a similar service which operates via the i54 site to the north of Wolverhampton. NXWM also operate a Wolverhampton - i54 - Cannock - Hednesford service, and Arriva are now halving its Wolverhampton - Cannock to hourly.
At the same time, Arriva are withdrawing its long-standing 116, Tamworth - Kingsbury - Birmingham. Central Buses will replace it with a new parallel X16. Tamworth - Kingsbury has had competition for a while, most recently from Central Buses, and Central will now have the upper hand.
This reduces the number of services Arriva runs into Birmingham to just one - the 110 Birmingham - Sutton Coldfield - Tamworth. Thankfully this is doing quite well, running every 15 minutes Mon-Sat (30 on Suns) and was restocked with new "Sapphire" Enviro 400s some 18 months ago.