National Express West Midlands

[winston270twm]

Announced this morning NXWM & Centro have extending their quality partnership agreement for another 2 years and committed to £81 million investment in the following:

- New Merry Hill bus station
- Revamp of Dudley Bus Station
- Introducing smart cards
- 300 new buses including 15 x Hybrids (NXC were bidding for Hybrid funding) - 25 of new bus order will be delivered by the end of this year
- 10 new routes

More info at:
http://www.expressandstar.com/news/...ost-with-new-vehicles-and-merry-hill-station/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23159053

 

[dvboy]

Smart cards isn't new - they're Centro's Swift cards already being accepted by some operators but good to see NX finally getting their act together with them.

It'll be interesting to see what the 10 new routes are (and which routes will be cut as a result)

Most of the investment, including the new vehicles, is going on routes to/from Merry Hill and Brierley Hill.

 

[winston270twm]

Smart cards isn't new - they're Centro's Swift cards already being accepted by some operators but good to see NX finally getting their act together with them.

It'll be interesting to see what the 10 new routes are (and which routes will be cut as a result)

Most of the investment, including the new vehicles, is going on routes to/from Merry Hill and Brierley Hill.

More detailed info on the Centro press release:

http://www.centro.org.uk/newsroom/PressReleases/PressRelease63866.aspx

I expect NXWM will now be accepting swift, however I would have thought that NX will retain control of their own travel card sales / offerings which are generally cheaper than the mufti-operator deals offered by Centro.

The 10 new routes quoted in the earlier articles aren't strictly brand new routes, but if face are 10 new gold routes which will effectively becoming showcase routes with new buses, more bus priorities, new shelters with real time displays etc

Merry Hill & Brierley Hill will only form a small proportion of the total investment announced today. The scheme was only originally worth £10 Million & £5million of that has came via funding from the Dft, Westfield Plc is contributing £1.5 Million, Centro £1.3 Million & NX & Rotala Plc have committed to spending £2.2 Million on new buses for the area, don't forget some of the new buses from NX for the Brierley Hill BBA scheme have already been delivered in the shape of ADL E200's for the 222. £2.2 Million will not buy many new buses, therefore the scheme will not amount to large quantities of further new buses being introduced as suggested.

See BBA bid submission below:
http://www.centro.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=7711&sID...‎

I expect the majority of the new buses / gold routes will be centred on Birmingham's busiest corridors.... I think the Hybrids may be due for Coventry, as I understand they were intending to bid for Greenbus funding from this year’s Greenbus fund 4 (which has only been part announced to date)