Tide (transportation company)

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Tide ASA is a transportation company in Bergen, Norway which resulted from the merger of Gaia Trafikk and HSD. The company provides the public transit network in Bergen, and most of the rural bus service in Hordaland. The company also operates the boat and ferry routes previously operated by HSD.

[edit] Assets

At the time of the merger, Tide had a total of

• 1040 buses
• 30 car ferries
• 10 boats

The company has about 3000 employees. The total value of the company was estimated at 800 million kroners. The company has 39 million passengers per year, of which 25 million are in Bergen. ^[1]

[edit] The merger process

Plans for mergers and takeovers in Hordaland's public transport business came forth in September 2005 when Connex reported interest in purchasing Gaia. On November 8 Gaia and HSD suggested a merger between the two companies instead, but the city cabinet leader of Bergen, Monica Mæland and the mayor of Os opposed the idea. The employess of both companies openly supported the idea in June 2006. Two other companies, Arriva and Nettbuss, a subsidiary NSB also showed interest in a takeover.

The city council in Bergen approved the HSD-Gaia merger on June 19, 2006, and the name "Tide" was presented on June 27. Just a day before the Extraordinary General Meetings in both companies, Arriva put in a bid of 380-400 million Norwegian kroners and the representative of Bergen's cabinet, Henning Warloe, voted against the fusion at Gaia's meeting on June 29. As this was against the council's resolution a motion no confidence was proposed. This motion failed on November 20 2006^[2] A new general meeting was called for Gaia and on July 17, the merger was approved in that company as well. The Norwegian Competition Authority approved the merger on October 25^[3].

Initially, the busses in the new company retained their old colors, yellow for Gaia, red and white for HSD, with only the logo being changed. New busses will have a white livery. ^[4]

[edit] External links

• Official webpage

1. ^ Transport merger passed (Transportfusjonen vedtatt) Bergens Tidende, July 17, 2006, in Norwegian
2. ^ No confidence motion against the city cabinet rejected (Mistillit mot byrådet nedstemt) Bergens Tidende, November 20, 2006, in Norwegian.
3. ^ A long journey is over (En lang reise er slutt) Bergens Tidende, October 25, 2006, in Norwegian
4. ^ Here is the Tide bus (Her er Tide-bussen) Bergens Tidende, October 26, 2006, in Norwegian)