Arriva pledges £45 million for Merseyside buses

• Arriva pledges to invest up to £45 million in local busservices, representing £85 million over ten years
• Arriva's vision: a high quality bus network at the heart oflocal transport on Merseyside

Arriva North West and Wales has set out its vision for thefuture success of buses on Merseyside, representing a potentialinvestment by the company of up to £45 million, which wouldthen bring its total investment over ten years to some £85million.

One of the top five employers on Merseyside, Arriva would commit upto £20 million to provide easy access, low floor bus buses onall main routes serving Liverpool by 2008, and would invest afurther £25 million to provide low floor buses on the wholeof its network across Merseyside by 2011.

Released today, Arriva's proposals – 'Buses on Merseyside:The next five years' – call for stronger partnerships and jointcommitments – including investment of some £75 million– from Merseytravel and other local authority partners.

In the document, Arriva points out that only by working togetherwill its vision work, and has urged potential partners to ensurethat the real benefits of its investment are realised and thatmaximum benefit is delivered for bus users. To achieve better buspriorities to improve service punctuality, it calls for closerlinks between Merseytravel and the highway authorities – evenproposing a transfer to Merseytravel of these powers.

Arriva's further investment is set to continue the revolutionarychanges in bus service quality that the company has pioneered inthe five years since it purchased the ailing Merseybus business.Since 2000, Arriva has invested £40 million in new vehicles,improvements to depots and garages, and employee development.

Bob Hind, managing director for Arriva North West and Wales,said:

When we took over Merseybus, we set out our commitmentsto the people of Merseyside – and we have delivered on ourpromises.

We bought 250 new buses, delivered higher frequencyservices with a vastly improved range of tickets and improvedaccessibility to information. A recent independent NOP surveyshowed that over 92 per cent of our customers were satisfied withour services, but we're not complacent – only the best isgood enough for Merseyside.

He said:

We are now sharing our vision of how bus services couldand should operate on Merseyside. Our proposals are anunprecedented commitment to working in partnership to deliver thissuccess whilst maintaining an effective and sustainablenetwork.

Our network in Merseyside offers one of the highestlevels of integration in the country and we want to work towardsever-closer links between transport modes.

Arriva has outlined how the quality of school bus services mustbe improved, calling for stringent quality controls for operatorsthat are selected through the local authority tenderingprocess.

It also includes a new approach to the long-term funding of theMerseytravel concessionary travel scheme and a revised andrevitalised multi-operator and multi-modal travel ticket.

The success of Arriva's ground-breaking Le bus network, now with147 buses, has shown that customers welcome better quality servicesrunning at high frequency. And Arriva's vision is to continue todevelop existing services to the Le bus standard.

Bob Hind added:

Buses are good for the environment, are better for roaduse, the economy and for social inclusion. We're ready to commit tofurther investment, however for our vision to be achieved, we needthe commitment of our partners – only together can we make adifference for the people of Merseyside.

More information about Arriva bus services on Merseyside isavailable from the website –www.arrivabus.co.uk – or via the dedicatedcustomer comment helpline 07004 277 482 (07004 ARRIVA).