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Arriva Southern Counties

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Arriva Southern Counties is a bus operator in London, Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent in England. It is a division of Arriva.

Contents

[edit] History

Originally founded in 1995 as Invictaway Ltd., it was renamed Arriva Southern Counties in 1997.

Invictaway Ltd. was the management services company set up by the then owners British Bus to run Maidstone & District (M&D), Kentish Bus and Londonlinks. The offices were (and still are) based in Maidstone. Invictaway was the name of the Maidstone & District commuter services to London, which were renamed Green Line at the same time. Invictaway Ltd. was a renaming of Einkorn Ltd., the company that bought M&D from the National Bus Company in 1986.

Upon the take over of British Bus by Cowie Group and the subsequent renaming of Cowie to Arriva, the operating companies became as follows:

Maidstone & District:

  • Mainly became Arriva Kent & Sussex Ltd.
  • Medway area became Arriva Medway Towns Ltd.

Kentish Bus:

  • Mainly became Arriva Kent Thameside Ltd.
  • Partly became Arriva Kent & Sussex Ltd.

London & Country:

  • Became Guildford & West Surrey Ltd.

LondonLinks:

  • Became Croydon & North Surrey

Current operations in the Southern Counties area are:

  • Arriva Kent & Sussex
  • Arriva Kent Thameside
  • Arriva Medway Towns
  • Arriva Guildford & West Surrey
  • Arriva Maidstone
  • Arriva Southend

Many reorganisations of Arriva operations in the South East have followed since, and today the company has also control of Arriva Guildford & West Surrey Ltd., Arriva West Sussex. and Arriva Southend Ltd. (and, for a time before sale, Arriva Colchester Ltd.). The Croydon & North Surrey subsidiary was largely transferred to Arriva London.

Arriva Colchester was sold in 2003 to Tellings Golden Miller. The coaching subsidiary, New Enterprise Coaches (Tonbridge) Ltd., inherited from Maidstone & District, remains in operation.

In June 2004, 61 new buses entered the fleet, as part of Arriva's original "Operation Overdrive". This meant that the Medway Towns depot would receive brand new vehicles with latest technology installed to replace old ones. New low floor buses in this depot would be refurbished. "Overdrive 2" entailed the refurbishment of some vehicles at Maidstone depot. Similar "Overdrive" projects have since followed on Merseyside and in County Durham.

[edit] Guildford Park and Ride

Arriva operates the Guildford park and ride for Surrey County Council. The buses are in the same style of livery, with oak tree leaves on the sides, but in different colours. Note: the Ladymead P&R site replaces the Spectrum Lesiure Centre car park on Saturdays.

The fleet comprises of: 3730 (LF02 PVA) Volvo B7L / Wrightbus Eclipse (ex 6200) "Bus of the Future". This bus works the 100 Park and Ride route on Saturdays to the Spectrum Leisure Centre. The route isn't worked by buses in the P&R livery on Saturdays because it is solely a route to Spectrum. The car park for P&R that day is at nearby Ladymead (route 101). The reason for this is the Spectrum car park gets very full on the weekends so the Spectrum Leisure company want all their car park! It takes two buses per park and ride route (Artington and Spectrum/Ladymead) so another bus - in normal arriva livery works the 100 on Saturdays with 3730.
3731 (GN-- MYO) Volvo B7RLE / Wrightbus Eclipse Urban - Lime Green
3732 (GN-- MYP) Volvo B7RLE / Wrightbus Eclipse Urban - Sky Blue
3733 (GN-- MYR) Volvo B7RLE / Wrightbus Eclipse Urban - Brown
3734 (GN-- MYT) Volvo B7RLE / Wrightbus Eclipse Urban - Dark Green
3735 (GN-- MYU) Volvo B7RLE / Wrightbus Eclipse Urban - Scarlet

All these buses are 54 registerd

[edit] Maidstone Park and Ride

Arriva also operates Maidstone Park and Ride for Maidstone Borough Council. The buses are yellow with a green stripe swooping down from the top of the back of the bus to the bottom of the front.

The fleet comprises of:
3959 (GN-- UFW) DAF SB120 (10.8m) / Wrightbus Cadet
3960 (GN-- UFX) DAF SB120 (10.8m) / Wrightbus Cadet
3961 (GN-- UFY) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3962 (GN-- UFZ) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3963 (GN-- UGA) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3964 (GN-- UGB) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3965 (GN-- UGC) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3966 (GN-- UGD) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3967 (GN-- UGE) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3968 (GN-- UGF) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander
3969 (GN-- UGG) DAF SB200 (11.8m) / Wrightbus Commander

All these buses are 04 registerd

[edit] Fastrack

This is a new scheme to improve the transport around the Kent Thames Gateway area. Arriva run Fastrack service B on behalf of Kent County Council. Service B will link Gravesend, Dartford and the Bluewater Shopping Centre with each other. Route A is due to start at the end of 2006.

[edit] Mercedes-Benz World

Three Mercedes-Benz Citaros were bought for service 436. This route used to be: Guildford-Burpham-Direct on A3-Ripley- Sendmarsh-Send-Kingfield-Woking-Sheerwater-West Byfleet-Byfleet-Manor Farm-Brooklands M&S/Tescos.

Now it is: Woking-Sheerwater-West Byfleet-Byfleet-Manor Farm-Mercedes-Benz World-Brooklands Museum-Weybridge Station. Arriva have totally withdrawn the Woking-Guildford section, with Countryliner Coaches making their 463 the 463 and 462.

The Citaros are in the normal style of Arriva livery, see below, but with light blue instead of Cream, and Silver in place of the aquamqrine.

Despite being 56 registered, the buses are only Euro 3 engined

[edit] Livery

The main Arriva livery is Aquamarine blue, with champagne cream and white separator line. There are many variations of the corporate livery. They are: <P>“Express” livery – Aquamarine, with dark blue band to skirt level. With the cream champagne “cow-horns” very much like Arriva London.
Vehicles in this livery are:
Gillingham:

  • 6444-9 (GN04 UFP-V) - Express 101
  • 6440-4 (GN04 UFJ-M) - Express 700/1 <P>Tunbridge Wells:
  • 3912/3 (T912/3 KKM) - Route 402 <P>Arriva’s Bluewater livery is allover blue, with a water effect.
  • 3273-5 (T273-5 JKM)
  • 3088 (P288 FPK) is in Arriva’s version of Aldershot & District’s livery <P>London livery
    The original London livery is red, with the champagne “cow-horns” and thin yellow line at
    skirt level. The Arriva “circles” logo is orange, not blue, as the corporate one. <P>New London livery
    The Arriva London livery is completely red, with the thin yellow line at skirt level.

    [edit] Depots

    The depots of Arriva Southern Counties are located at:

    [edit] The fleet

    There are many vehicles in the Southern Counties fleet. There has been a lot of money put in to improve services. In Guildford the entire depot was re-built and the fleet updated with new DAF/Wrightbus Cadets. <P> CURRENT FLEET NEWS: <P>


    3912/3 (T912/3 KKM) DAF DE02GSSB220 / Plaxton Prestige has been repainted in new 402 livery


    [edit] See also


    Companies operating buses under contract to London Buses

    Armchair | Arriva London | Arriva Shires & Essex | Arriva Southern Counties | Blue Triangle

    CT Plus | Docklands Buses | Ealing Community Transport | East London | East Thames Buses

    First London | London Central | London General | Metrobus | Metroline | NCP-Challenger

    Quality Line | Selkent | Sullivan Buses | Thorpes | Transdev London | Travel London | Uno

    Also, see London's Bus Garages for operating codes.

    [edit] External links

    Retrieved from "http://en.wikivisual.com/index.php/Arriva_Southern_Counties"
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