Ulsterbus

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Ulsterbus is a public transport operator in Northern Ireland and operates bus services outside of Belfast. It is part of Translink (the brand name for the subsidiary operating companies of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company - NITHCo), which also includes Northern Ireland Railways, Metro Belfast and Ulsterbus Foyle.

1 Services
2 External link

[edit] Services

Ulsterbus is responsible for most of the province-wide bus services in Northern Ireland. They operate around 20 bus stations (several of which, such as those at Belfast Europa and Bangor, form integrated transport interchanges with Northern Ireland Railways stations) and 1,100 buses. Ulsterbus is charged with transporting over 65,000 children per day to school.

Ulsterbus is now in the process of modernising its fleet for better accessibility for diabled people. On the 28 June 2006, Translink announced that the Leyland Leopard, synonymous with Ulsterbus, will be phased out of service. [1] These are being replaced by the Optare Solo bus, amongst others.

[edit] Goldline

Goldline is the name given to the intercity bus services operated by Ulsterbus. There are also a number of cross border and cross channel (Irish Sea) services to Great Britain, operated in partnership with National Express [2] under the Eurolines banner.

[edit] Ulsterbus Foyle

Originally Derry’s internal bus network was run by Ulsterbus, which still serves the city's connections with other towns in the province however now the cities buses have been reordered into Ulsterbus Foyle. ^[1] In the same way Translink Metro was used to modernize routes in Belfast the Ulsterbus Foyle network now offers 13 set routes across the city into the popular suburban areas of the city. It is hoped that the new service will make transportation in Northern Ireland’s second city a lot easier and will encourage people to make use of Derry's public transport system.

The 13 new and improved routes are:

FY1- Strathfoyle
FY2- Nelson Drive
FY3- Knightsbridge
FY4- Curryneirin
FY5- Gobnascale
FY6- Newbuildings
FY7- Lonemoor
FY8- Creggan
FY9- Hazelbank
FY10- Ballymagroarty
FY11- Woodbrook
FY12- Slievemore
FY13- Sandbank

There is also an Easibus link connecting to the Waterside and Drumahoe, and a free Rail Link Bus from the Waterside Railway Station that have been set-up. All the buses leave from the Foyle Street Bus Station in Derry City Centre.

[edit] UniLink

Ulsterbus operate the "University Link" service between the two main campuses of Northern Ireland's largest universities, Queens University of Belfast, and University of Ulster at the Jordanstown campus. This service is regularly complained about by customers for high student fares and frequently absent services, despite a reasonable timetable.

[edit] Private/Contract Hire

Ulsterbus offer a private and contract hire service, with virtually any type of bus in the current fleet available for hire.

[edit] Day Tours

Ulsterbus operate "Day Tours" to other parts of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland mainly shopping and to some tourist attractions.