Stagecoach Manchester

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Slogan	Moving Greater Manchester Forward
Parent company	Stagecoach Group plc
Founded	1996, formerly GM Buses South
Headquarters	Hyde Road, Manchester
Service area	Greater Manchester (some services overlap into other counties)
Service type	Bus
Hubs	Manchester, Daw Bank, Stockport, Princess Road, Ashton, Charles Street, Stockport
Fleet	Optare Solo Volvo B10M Alexander Dennis Trident Alexander Dennis Pointer Alexander Dennis Enviro400 Volvo Olympian Leyland Olympian
Operator	Stagecoach Group
Web site	Official Website

Stagecoach Manchester is the trading name of Greater Manchester Buses South Limited, and is a major operator of bus services in Greater Manchester. Stagecoach Manchester is the largest UK bus subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group, serving over 87 million passenger a year.^[1] Stagecoach Manchester's operations include the 192 service of which the portion between Stockport (Mersey Square) and Manchester (Piccadilly Gardens) is Britain's busiest route carrying 11 million passengers a year alone.^[2]

The company was formerly known as GM Buses (South) Ltd. which was formed as a management buy out of the southern area of GM Buses (originated from Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive's bus division).

On 21 January 2008, Stagecoach Manchester purchased the bus operations of A Mayne & Son Ltd (Maynes), with Maynes's fleet of 38 vehicles passing to Hyde Road depot, to eventually be repainted.^[3] No depot was involved in the sale.

On 10 August 2008, Stagecoach Manchester purchased another independent bus operator, this time Bullocks Coaches based in Cheadle, Stockport, removing the only independent operator to be based in Stockport. Bullocks has however retained one bus route the 147 "Oxford Road Link" operated as a subsidised university and hospital link. Stagecoach Manchester will seek to operate the Bullocks services separately until suitable regulatory clearance has been obtained. Bullocks' services included the 157 route between Woodford and Manchester.^[4]

The northern area of GM Buses is now known as First Manchester.

[edit] History

GM Buses (South) was formed in 1994 in preparation for privatisation of the former PTE bus company in Greater Manchester. It was broken into two to make more money for the Government and also to fill the Government's 'sweet shop' bus company ownership vision. Stagecoach put in a strong bid, and gained clearance from the Department of Trade & Industry, but the employees bought it for £16million. It faced an uphill struggle. Over 40 competitors had grown over GM Buses routes before the break-up, although most of those attacked GM Buses (North). However, Bee Line and MTL Manchester did go south, and Mayne, Walls and Finglands were established competitors on lucrative South Manchester routes.

Both companies also suffered from elderly fleets, as a stand-alone (nil subsidy) arms' length company, GM Buses had not been able to buy new buses, and thus Atlanteans and Fleetlines - the newest by then 15 years old - had to soldier on. Competitors were expanding and the private company could not meet the investment needed.

Stagecoach set up a Ribble subsidiary, Stagecoach Manchester, to compete on GMB (South)'s prime route, the 192 (Manchester - Hazel Grove) with brand new buses, and soon they became popular, the new Volvo B6s made a lasting impression where GMBS could only present a dowdy, dated image.

GMBS had to fight back, in response to increasing competition by Merseyside Transport (MTL Manchester) GMBS set up Birkenhead & District on the Wirral, running Fleetlines in Birkenhead Corporation livery. Throughout 1994 GMBS bought a large number of secondhand buses, mainly more Atlanteans and Leyland Nationals. Competition with Stagecoach became stronger, with Stagecoach bringing in new buses in the shape of new Volvo B10M-55s with Alexander PS bodies. GMBS used its Charterplan coaching fleet to attack Stagecoach Ribble's X43 to Burnley. By the end of 1994 everything turned peaceful, Stagecoach agreed no further competition on the 192, and financed 20 Volvo B6s for GMBS.

In February 1996 GMBS gave up, and Stagecoach bought the business, it was quickly rebranded Stagecoach Manchester and did well out of Stagecoach new bus orders. The original Stagecoach Manchester was sold to Finglands.

[edit] Depots

Stagecoach Manchester has two depots in Stockport, one at Daw Bank and the other on Charles Street. As well as this there are two depots in Manchester, located on Hyde Road and Princess Road. There is also a depot slightly out of the former Greater Manchester area, situated at York Street in Glossop. Finally during June 2008 a depot was opened in Ashton. This new depot will, from the 25th Jan 2009 take on the small fleet from Glossop and in the long term, the Charles street depot. The Glossop depot was closed shortly after the transfer of the fleet to the new Ashton depot, with Stagecoach seeking to sell the site to a developer.

[edit] Fleet

A Manchester Magicbus, #15191

As at approximately August 2008, Stagecoach in Manchester had 690 vehicles in operation. Broken down into:

[edit] Hyde Road & Ashton depots

• 157 Double-deck buses
  • 65 Trident/Enviro400
  • 28 Scania N113DRBs (16 in Magic Bus livery, 7 in Maynes livery)
  • 25 Volvo Olympians (8 in Magic Bus livery)
  • 15 Trident/ALX400
  • 12 Scania N230UD/Enviro400
  • 10 Trident/East Lancs Lolyne
  • 2 Trident/Plaxton President
• 90 Single-deck buses
  • 15 Volvo B10Ms/Plaxton Paladin (in Magic Bus livery)
  • 28 Volvo B10Ms/Alexander PS-type
  • 38 MAN/Alexander ALX300 (low floor) vehicles
  • 3 Dennis Dart (in Maynes livery)
  • 3 Dart (low floor) vehicles (1 in Maynes livery)
  • 2 Scania/East Lancs Myllenium (in Maynes livery)
  • 1 Iveco (in Yellow "school bus" livery)

[edit] Princess Road depot

• 173 Double-deck buses
  • 20 Dennis Dragon (in Magic Bus livery)
  • 6 Leyland Olympian tri-axle vehicles (in Magic Bus livery)
  • 6 Leyland Olympian (ex GMBuses, in Magic Bus livery)
  • 31 Volvo Olympians (14 of them in Magic Bus livery)
  • 8 Scanias (in Magic Bus livery)
  • 35 Dennis Trident/Alexander ALX400s
  • 68 Dennis Trident/Enviro400
• 30 single deck buses
  • 8 Volvo B10M/Alexander PS-type
  • 21 MAN/Alexander ALX300 (low floor)
  • 1 Enviro300

[edit] Stockport depot

• 124 double deck buses
  • 60 Trident/Enviro400
  • 26 Volvo Olympians (8 in Bullocks livery)
  • 21 Trident/Alexander ALX400s
  • 5 Trident/EL Lolynes (in Bullocks livery)
  • 6 Leyland Olympians (in Bullocks livery)
  • 4 Scania N113DRBs
  • 2 DAF DB250/Optare Spectras (in Bullocks livery)
• 64 single deck buses
  • 21 Volvo B10M
  • 42 MAN 18.220/Alexander ALX300s (low floor vehicles)
  • 1 DAF SB220/Plaxton Prestige (in Bullocks livery)

[edit] Charles Street Depot

• 56 single deck
  • 24 Dart (low floor vehicles)
  • 16 MAN 18.220/Alexander ALX300s
  • 13 Dart (standard)
  • 3 Volvo B10M/Alexander PS-type
• 22 Midi/minibuses
  • 13 Mercedes-Benz Vario
  • 7 Optare Solos
  • 2 Mercedes-Benz 709Ds

[edit] Service

Stagecoach Manchester mainly run services in the southern half of Greater Manchester, serving Stockport, Tameside and south and central Manchester. They also run some local services in Glossop. Stagecoach does run some services outside these areas, which are the 22 (Bolton – Stockport) which is shared with First Manchester and Stagecoach North West and the 76 (Oldham - Manchester).

Due to reduced traffic during the summer holidays, Stagecoach Manchester change some of their timetables on busier services at this time of year. Services are re-timetabled closer to the off peak timetable. Also, some services introduce additional journeys using buses that would normally otherwise be used for school services.

[edit] List of routes

This is a summary of Stagecoach Manchester services. All operate on a daily basis, with evening services unless otherwise noted. Weekend services may differ:

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Stagecoach Manchester official website
• Stagecoach fleets^{[dead link]}

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