Avon Buses
| File:Avon Buses Logo Colour.PNG | |
| 250px | |
| Parent | Larry Smith |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 1981 |
| Headquarters | Prenton |
| Service area | Merseyside Cheshire |
| Service type | Bus services |
| Hubs | West Kirby Birkenhead Arrowe Park Hospital Heswall Chester Crosby Clatterbridge Hospital |
| Fleet | 34 (February 2013) |
Avon Buses[1] is a bus operator based in Prenton providing services in Merseyside and Cheshire.
History
Avon Minis, as the company was originally known, was founded in August 1981 by present proprietor Larry Smith. By 1995 it had six buses and ran mostly school contracts plus one local route. The newest buses were two Leyland Titans.[2]
Since then the company has expanded with services starting in Crosby, Fazakerley and their former outstation in Bootle. The business was renamed Avon Buses was made in 2004/05.
Avon Buses took over former Arriva North West routes 421 and 422, renumbering them to 22 and 22A. Avon then decided to renumber service 22A to 24 so it would not confuse its passengers with Helms Coaches service 23. They also took over five other groups of routes at the same time. After Helms Coaches service was withdrawn, Avon Buses decided not to up the frequency of routes 22 and 24 but add an additional Sunday 23 service from Heswall to Chester Bus Exchange, which was eventually withdrawn in April 2011.[citation needed]
In October 2013 Avon took on eight routes from Impera Bus & Coach[3] following the latter ceasing to trade.[4][5]
29 June 2014 seen the end of two commercial Avon routes, (Route 40/40A Saughall Massie - Mill Park) & (Route 80 Woodside - Arrowe Park Hospital) Also it seen the end of Merseytravel routes 197 & 213
On 6 July 2014 Avon took over Cumfybus' daytime 135,235 service between Bootle and Aintree.
On 10 August 2014 Avon took over Merseytravel services 144/145 from Peoplesbus which run between Litherland and Bootle. 2 morning and 2 afternoon services start and finish at Arrowe Park Hospital, in Wirral, which are numbered 143
From 8 December 2014, some of their longer routes were split up, which interwork with each other. Routes 86/87 were cut back to Heswall, whilst the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby was renumbered 88. Routes 77/77A were also cut back to Heswall, whilst the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby became the 82/82A. This had happened previously, in August 2012, routes 12 and 12A were split to become 12 and 93, the route remained unchanged, with through journeys still possible, however they were technically now different services.
Routes
Avon operates the routes under contract to Merseytravel as well as commercially[citation needed]
Wirral (Commercial): 10A, 12, 16/16A/17, 18, 77/77A, 80, 81, 82/82A, 83/83A, 84, 85, 86/87, 88, 90, 93, 441/442, 473
Wirral (Under contract to Merseytravel): 107/207/208, 164, 203, 293, 411, 492/495
Liverpool (Commercial): 18, 122, 135/235, 144/145, 202/204, 441/442, 473
Fleet
As at October 2014 the fleet consisted of 38 buses.[6]
The bulk of the fleet consists of Dennis Dart SLF and Alexander Dennis Enviro 200 Darts chassis with East Lancs Spryte, Marshall Capital, Caetano Nimbus, MCV Evolution, Plaxton Pointer and Plaxton Pointer 2 bodywork.
See also
References
- ↑ Companies House extract company no 3929294 Avon Buses Limited
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Companies House extract company no 7449882 Impera Bus & Coach Limited
- ↑ Impera Bus & Coach Cease Trading The North West Bus Blog 3 October 2013
- ↑ Impera Buses have stopped running their bus services Merseytravel 13 October 2013
- ↑ Avon Buses Fleetlist Merseyside Dennis Dart
External links
Media related to Avon Buses at Wikimedia Commons
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Bus companies operating in North West England
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