Plymouth Citybus

Plymouth Citybus^[1] is a bus operator in Plymouth. It is a subsidiary of the Go South West sector of the Go-Ahead Group.

History

Plymouth City Transport

In 1892, Plymouth Corporation purchased the horse-powered tramways of the Plymouth Tramway Company and placed them in the care of a new Tramways Department.

A large part of the population of Plymouth moved out to the relative safety of the countryside during the war which meant that the Corporation's buses and trams were carrying fewer passengers, but rival Western National was under increasing pressure. Both operators had suffered damage to their depots and fleet – Milehouse was bombed in April 1941 – and so the two companies decided to pool resources under a Plymouth Joint Services agreement. This took effect from 1 October 1942 and resulted in 80% of mileage in and around the city were to be operated by the Corporation and 20% by Western National; the receipts were also divided in the same proportion, irrespective of which company operated which routes. This allowed Plymouth buses to operate beyond the city boundary to places such as Yelverton, Plympton and Wembury, while Western National were now allowed to pick up local passengers within the city where they had previously been restricted to only those travelling beyond the boundary.^[11] The Plymouth Joint Services agreement remained in place after the war, enabling both the Corporation and Western National to serve new housing estates that sprang up around the edge of the city.^[12] The routes in the Joint Services area, including those of Western National, were renumbered in a single sequence from 1 to 57 in 1957.^[13]

Buses with front entrances were delivered to Plymouth City Transport from 1960 which paved the way to conversion of routes to

During the early part of the 1980s, the National Bus Company (of which Western National was a subsidiary) undertook Market Analysis Projects in many areas to match services with demand. This resulted in most Plymouth Joint Services cross-city routes being split into two that terminated in the city centre from 24 October 1982, as the survey revealed that few passengers travelled across the city without changing buses. The revision saw annual mileage reduced from more than 5.4 million miles to around 4.5 million, and the fleet from 185 to 160 vehicles. Buses were repainted and given "Plymouth Citybus" branding.^[15]

For some time, the Citybus services had been operated to

On 21 January 1988, Citybus sacked 120 drivers who had stopped work to attend a mass meeting.[16] Their colleagues walked out in solidarity and the Citybus service was crippled for two weeks. Western National used this opportunity to lay on extra buses, using the same numbers as Citybus services they were replacing, and Western National also covered Citybus school and Dockyard routes.^[17] Western National threatened to give jobs to sacked Citybus drivers. The Plymouth Evening Herald reported daily on the war of words between Citybus Director Brian Fisher (formerly Principal Assistant Transport Manager for Plymouth City Transport) and Western National Director John Preece.^[18] Agreement between Citybus management and unions was reached on 5 February, with drivers returning to work on 6 February.^[19]

After a while direct competition between the two companies ceased and they largely returned to operating their old routes.^[8] At the end of the century Citybus operated about 75% of routes in Plymouth along with a few routes beyond the city boundaries.^[20]

Go-Ahead Group

In May 2009, Plymouth City Council announced that it intended to sell the company. Early interest came from FirstGroup and local taxi owner John Preece^[21] who had been behind the privatisation of Western National and had made previous attempts to purchase Citybus.^[20] The proposed sale led to increased competition in the city but FirstGroup withdrew its interest. It was debated in the House of Commons in October 2009.^[22] A £20 million bid by the Go-Ahead Group was accepted in November 2009.^[23][24][25]

Operations

As of October 2013, Plymouth Citybus employed 443 people, operated 151 buses and coaches, and carried about 14 million passengers annually.^[26] In addition to its bus and coach operations, it also provides vehicle repairs and servicing for other commercial road operators and private car drivers through its Car and Commercial division.^[27] Its fleet is based at a depot in Milehouse.

In October 2013, Plymouth Citybus launched a new service to

Plymouth City Transport's first coach-seated vehicles was a Leyland National fitted with coach seats.^[29] A separate unit branded 'Plymouth Citycoach' was later created Citybus with its own management and a remit to produce a profit. It offered both advertised day trips and holiday tours, as well as hiring out its vehicles. It initially carried a version of the bus livery, but generally with more white.^[20][30]

The coaching business was shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but was reintroduced in 2023 using the 'Go Southwest Coach Hire' brand.^{[citation needed]}

Go Cornwall Bus

The Liskeard-based operations of Western Greyhound were purchased on 8 December 2014 with 9 Optare Solo buses and relaunched as Go Cornwall Bus. This included the Liskeard-Plymouth section of route 593 but the Liskeard-Newquay section of the same route remained with Western Greyhound and through tickets were made available.^[31][32][33]

It was announced on 6 January 2020 that

In more recent years, Plymouth Citybus launched a range of services known as the Flash, with the colour of the livery preceding Flash, with Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Orange. The Red Flash being the 21/21A service between

'Flash' branding has now been withdrawn in favour of the default Plymouth Citybus brand. 21/A has been replaced with a new, fresh livery called 'SPARK' with the delivery of 2017 Enviro400 City vehicles.

Fleet

The first buses delivered in 1920 were twenty 31-seat Straker-Squire vehicles with solid tyres.

By 1927 the fleet included Burford,

• Mercedes Citaro (training vehicles)
• Enviro 200/MMC
• Enviro 400/City/MMC
• MAN 18.270 CNG Caetano EcoCitys
• OmniDekka
• Mercedes-Benz Sprinter City 45

Preservation

A number of Plymouth City Transport and Plymouth Citybus vehicles have been preserved by members of the Plymouth City Transport Preservation Group.^[36]

Liveries and brands

Plymouth City Tramways initially used a maroon colour scheme but a yellow and white livery was introduced in 1922^[7] although some had varnished teak bodies. A change to maroon and white was made in 1929.^[10] Buses later used a bright red and cream livery.^[29]

A new image (designed by Ososki Graphics of

A few years later a black, red and white livery was adopted for all buses, but the black was eventually replaced by grey.[8] When low floor buses were introduced they were given 'Super Rider' branding.^[20] Park and ride services were introduced using Mercedes-Benz minibuses in a mid-grey scheme^[8] but the Dennis Dart MPDs that replaced them were given special green and yellow livery.^[20]

The red, white and grey livery later became red and white. Following the takeover by Go Ahead in 2009, Best Impressions designed a two tone red livery with a white 'swoosh', this accompanied a new version of the Plymouth CityBus logo. However this has since been adapted by the company, who now use a plain red with a different style of swoosh (which covers more of the bus) and a simplified version of the Best Impressions devised logo.^{[citation needed]} The new livery is often dubbed as 'Lines'.

References