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National Express West Midlands

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A National Express West Midlands Alexander ALX400 in Travel West Midlands Branding
Founded26 Oct 1986
HeadquartersBirmingham
LocaleBirmingham
Service areaEngland
Service typeUrban and interurban bus services
DestinationsBirmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall
OperatorNational Express Group
WebsiteNational Express West Midlands

National Express West Midlands is the current trading and brand name of West Midlands Travel Ltd (part of the National Express Group), a company which operates bus services from their depots in the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, as well as the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, and Walsall in the West Midlands region of England. The Birmingham depots also operate routes in the adjoining borough of Solihull. They are the largest bus operator in the West Midlands. West Midlands Travel Ltd also has one depot in the city of Coventry which currently trades under the name National Express Coventry. The company previously operated under the trading name of Travel West Midlands and prior to that as West Midlands Travel.

History

File:Travel west midlands logo.gif
The old "Travel West Midlands" logo, still displayed on over 90% of the current fleet.

Transitional Period

File:NatEx WestMids interim logo.gif
The temporary transitional logo which is displayed on most of the repainted vehicles.

National Express West Midlands aim for 1000 vehicles to be in the new NXWM Livery by February 2009. Currently since the new livery has been introduced, just 21 buses on average have been painted per month.

Future

121 new buses due to the company during 2008/early 2009.

Fares and travelcards

The adult fare on National Express West Midlands routes (within the West Midlands county) is £1.10 for a short hop (up to 2 fare stages) and £1.50 for any distance beyond that, on certain sections of some routes the £1.50 fare is the only available (flat rate) single fare. Children aged 5 to 15 are eligible for half rate single fares (55p and 75p). Toddlers aged under 5 are entitled to free travel with a paying adult. National Express West Midlands and National Express Coventry also have a 'Standard Fare' scheme in force, issuing penalty fares of £10 - £20 to deter fraudulent travel.

An all day Daysaver ticket for all routes is £3.00 adult, £2.00 child, which includes National Express Coventry routes as well as routes running outside the West Midlands county where single fares are sometimes much higher than £1.50. There was an offer on at NXWM which enables a free daysaver so people can try for free NXWM buses. [2]

Season tickets include :

  • Regional Travelcard
  • Regional Travelcard with Metro add on
  • Black Country Faresaver
  • Birmingham & Black Country Faresaver
  • nbus Season Pass
  • nbus Child Term Plus

Concessionary

Senior citizens (aged 60 or over) and disabled persons who are resident in the seven metropolitan boroughs of the former West Midlands county are eligible for a free concessionary travel pass issued by Centro. This pass offers free multi-operator bus travel throughout England and free rail and tram travel within the West Midlands county with the exception of weekday journeys starting before 9:30am. However, a concessionary add-on season ticket can be purchased for weekday travel within the West Midlands county before 9:30am.

Garages and routes

National Express West Midlands have eleven garages in the area. Birmingham based ones are Acocks Green, Bordesley Green, Birmingham Central, Lea Hall, Perry Barr and Yardley Wood. Four garages are in the Black Country - Pensnett, Walsall, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton. The National Express Coventry garage provides services in Coventry and the surrounding area.[3]

As general rule, services operating in the Birmingham area are numbered 0-199, buses in the Dudley area are numbered 200's, Walsall area buses are numbered 300's, West Bromwich area buses 400's and Wolverhampton area buses 500's. 600's have no set area, but are often subsidised services. 700's and 800's are school/work services and 900's are Express Services.

For a list of routes (and which garage operates them) please see the List of National Express West Midlands Bus Routes.

Showcase bus routes

In partnership with Network West Midlands, National Express West Midlands has recently upgraded six of its bus routes to 'showcase' services. The routes involved in the scheme, which sees passengers getting a refund if their bus is more than 15 minutes late (but only when this is due to a direct fault of National Express West Midlands, e.g. you will not be refunded if your bus is late due to traffic, vandalism etc) is currently in force on services 1, 377, 451, 934, 993 and 997. Services 1 (Birmingham - Moseley), 377 (Walsall - Sutton Coldfield) and 451 (West Bromwich - Sutton Coldfield) are operated using recently refurbished buses. Services 934 (Birmingham - Foley Road West), 993 (Birmingham - Streetly) and 997 (Walsall - Birmingham) are served by brand new, high backed leather seated buses in the new 'National Express West Midlands' livery.

Dudley bus network

At the end of April 2008, in conjunction with other operators and Network West Midlands, National Express West Midlands has majorly revised its bus routes in the Dudley, Halesowen and Stourbridge areas. Almost every route in these areas have been rerouted, retimed or renumbered, with some routes being withdrawn and replaced by new services.[4] Despite extensive public consultation and the involvement of local transport co-ordinating body Centro (West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive), the new network has not met with universal approval: two particular complaints have arisen. Firstly some parts of the Staffordshire village of Wombourne are not as well served by buses and secondly the withdrawal of former bus service 261 serving Russells Hall hospital has been criticised by passengers.

Safer Travel

Safer Travel (formally known as Operation Safer Travel - OST) is a partnership between National Express West Midlands, National Express Coventry, Centro and West Midlands Police. Safer Travel aims to deter and detect crime, vandalism and graffiti on National Express West Midlands buses. It has been highly successful in doing this with various initiatives introduced over the past seven years - helping Safer Travel lead the bus industry in terms of delivery, ideas and innovation.

Stuart Henry, a young National Express manager, is credited with much of Safer Travel's success, but Henry has now left the business and handed over the daily running of Safer Travel to a central unit within National Express. Henry, and his colleague Philip Bateman MBE (now retired but believed to be in business with Henry) often spoke well at industry events on the subject and have a widely respected knowledge on bus crime issues.

In order to help combat crime on National Express services, Safer Travel inspectors and officers conduct "Gateway" checks up and down the West Midlands, looking out for fare evaders, drugs via a special OST dog unit and people who are wanted for arrest within the West Midlands.

The Safer Travel team also have presentations for local schools through the award-winning 'SMART Schools project' educating children about how to respect their buses. Advertising campaigns such as the "Yes they do work", referring to the CCTV cameras fitted to many vehicles, as well as "Crystaleyes" TV sets on selected fleet, also help to spread the constant message.

The team is also located within National Express Dundee working in partnership with Tayside Police.

Safer Travel has recently expanded into its National Express London subsidiary with various Safer Travel 'code of conduct' contracts signed between the operator and various schools within the National Express London area.

Fleet

Main article: National Express West Midlands Fleet

This is the official fleet list of National Express West Midlands Buses, including National Express Coventry vehicles but excluding driver trainers, withdrawn buses and those on loan, as at 25 September 2008.[3]

At least 207 buses are in the National Express West Midlands/National Express Coventry livery. As many as 178 buses are still in the old West Midlands Travel livery. The remainder are in one of the several versions of the 'low floor' livery, with the exception of two in Blthye Valley Shuttle Bus livery and one in Plain White.

Low floor aim

By 2010, National Express West Midlands is aiming for the whole of their fleet to be low floor easy access buses.[5] This means that the remaining MCW Metrobus, Volvo B10B/Alexander Strider and Leyland Lynx will have to be withdrawn before this date. Altogether, 180 buses (on average 12 buses a month) will have to be withdrawn by 2010.

Future Fleet

It is known that National Express West Midlands have 60 more Alexander Dennis Enviro400 Double Deck buses, a further 60 Scania OmniLink Single Decks and 1 Alexander Dennis Enviro300 Bus on order.

However, at the very maximum only 30 Scania OmniLinks and 20 Enviro400s will be arriving during the remainder of 2008 and the exact locations of these buses has not yet been confirmed.

Other information

The MCW Metrobus is the oldest type of bus used by National Express West Midlands and therefore its joint elder vehicles are Metrobuses 2530 & 2534, based at the company's Walsall Depot. These buses both entered service on October 11 1982, at the company's Quinton Garage (which has since closed) to West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) - prior to deregulation and the change to West Midlands Travel.

Defunct subsidiary companies

There was a Travel North Birmingham planned but this never started up. These subsidiaries have merged into the main National Express West Midlands fleet.

References

  1. ^ "TWM rebranding". travelwm.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  2. ^ http://www.travelwm.co.uk/fuelCampaign/website/freeDaySaver NXWM Offer site
  3. ^ a b "TWM Fleetlist & Depots". travelwm.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-09-24. Cite error: The named reference "twmfleet" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Dudley Bus Network". networkwestmidlands.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
  5. ^ "£69 million Bus & Coach Order". travelwm.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-03-03.


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See also

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