Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company

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Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company operates almost all bus services in the city of Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom. The company was established in 1884 as Brighton, Hove and Preston United Omnibus Company ^[1] and has been part of the Go-Ahead Group since 1993.

The company currently operates a fleet of 276 buses, including 18 built in 2006. (Except for two vintage buses, the oldest in the fleet date from 1994.) [1] Ten luxury coaches, which are available for private hire, are also part of the fleet.

1 Operations and routes
- 1.1 METRO services
2 Buses to the South Downs
3 Named buses
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Operations and routes

The company's routes cover a large area encompassing the whole of the city, some parts of West and East Sussex and single route into Kent. The boundaries are:

Shoreham and Steyning in the west;
Falmer, Lewes, Ringmer and Tunbridge Wells in the north;
Newhaven, Seaford and Eastbourne in the east.

There are 40 separately-numbered standard routes serving Brighton, Hove and the surrounding areas. Frequencies range from every 5 minutes to two journeys per day. In addition, there are five "Night Bus" routes, a Park & Ride facility between the Withdean Sports Complex and Churchill Square, and twenty-three school bus routes. During 2005, the company took over many routes previously operated partly or entirely by Scottish-based UK-wide bus operator Stagecoach Group, the best example being the Coaster services 12 & 13 to Seaford and Eastbourne.

[edit] METRO services

During 1996 and 1997, four of the most popular routes (1/1A, 7, 25 and 5/5A/5B) were enhanced with new buses and individual route brandings. On 8 September 1997, the concept was extended to a fifth route and standardised under the name METRO (e.g. "METRO line 1"). All five routes offer regular frequencies, modern buses and a wide range of connections throughout the centres of Brighton and Hove, reinforced by a colour-coded diagrammatic map [2].

Route	Frequency	Between	And	Route Details
1	7-8 minutes	Whitehawk	Mile Oak	Via Royal Sussex County Hospital, Old Steine, Churchill Square and Hove Town Hall
5	10 minutes	Patcham/Hollingbury	Hangleton	Via Old Steine, Churchill Square and Hove Town Hall. 5 and 5A run from Patcham; 5B runs from Hangleton
7	7 minutes	Hove (George Street)	Brighton Marina	Via Hove station, Brighton station, Churchill Square, Old Steine and Royal Sussex County Hospital
25	10 minutes	Universities	Brighton Marina/Hove (Palmeira Square)	Via St Peter's Church, Old Steine and Churchill Square. 25 runs to Palmeira Square; 25A (peak hours only) runs to Portslade station; 25C runs to Brighton Marina
49	10 minutes	East Moulsecoomb	Portslade station	Via Open Market, Old Steine, Churchill Square and Hove Town Hall. 49B (evenings only) terminates at Churchill Square

[edit] Buses to the South Downs

In 2002, three special routes were introduced from the city centre to popular countryside locations on the South Downs. These have proved successful, and will be run during the winter of 2006. The company often uses its fleet of four open-topped buses on these routes during the summer. The routes are:

77: Brighton Pier to Devil's Dyke
78: Old Steine to Stanmer Park
79: Old Steine to Ditchling Beacon

Name on the front of a bus

[edit] Named buses

Many of the company's buses have the name of a famous person commemorated on their front. ^[2]

In 1999, the company ran a competition asking local residents to name the twenty new double-decker buses that had just been added to its fleet. The company had started with names such as "Brighton Belle", "Brighton Rock", "Brighton Pier", "Brighton and Hove Albion", "Hove Actually", and "Brighton and Hove in Bloom" and then asked local residents for help. It considered the options of naming the buses after landmarks in the town, people from the past, and present day celebrities. ^[3]

In April 2004, the company added another eighteen buses to its fleet, and continued the practice of providing them with names. The company's stated rule for choosing the name was given as "The nominations must have made a significant contribution to the life of the local area during their lifetime and must have since died.". ^[4]

In September 2005, the company added a further nineteen buses to its fleet, naming them after people who had "made great contributions to the city", and including more female names after complaints that the system had been too male-dominated up until that point. For a year, one of the buses had been named after local historian and journalist Adam Trimingham, a special exception to the rule that only the names of dead people be used. ^[5]

Further information: List of Brighton and Hove buses named after famous people