Travel West Midlands
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Travel West Midlands (formerly known as West Midlands Travel) is the biggest bus operator in the West Midlands, including the cities of Birmingham, Coventry (trading as Travel Coventry) and Wolverhampton as well as the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall. The price of a journey for an adult on a Travel West Midlands bus is £1.40 for an single journey and £3 for a daysaver.
Travel West Midlands is owned by the National Express Group which also owns sister operators Travel London and Travel Dundee. The company stems from the 1986 deregulation of the bus industry in England and Wales. The company evolved out of what was previously the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) and had originally been the separate operations of the Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Bromwich and Coventry Corporations.
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[edit] Routes
For a list of routes operated by TWM, see List of Travel West Midlands bus routes.
[edit] The fleet
Travel West Midlands operates around 1800 buses on over 500 routes. They are based at eleven garages: TWM Acocks Green, TWM Birmingham Central, TWM Bordesley (as a result of Hockley Garage closing in May 2005), TWM Lea Hall, TWM Park Lane (Wolverhampton), TWM Pensnett, TWM Perry Barr, TWM Walsall, TWM West Bromwich, TWM Coventry and TWM Yardley Wood.
[edit] Single deckers and bendi-buses
Leyland Lynx - Travel West Midlands used to operate the country's largest fleet of Lynxs however they are being slowly replaced and there are now only 8 of the vehicles working in the TWM fleet. They can be seen on Yardley Wood services 2, 12, 18 and 35 however they are due to be fully replaced by the end of 2006.
Mercedes O405N - Mainly operated in the Coventry, Lea Hall and Bordesley routes, They are TWM's main single decker.
Volvo B10L - This model was not popular with a lot of operators when it first launched, however Travel West Midlands bought 94, including 14 powered by compressed natural gas (CNG). The conventional diesel-powered ones are mainly seen on Acocks Green and Perry Barr routes; the gas powered buses are used around Walsall.
Volvo B7RLE / Wright Eclipse Urban - TWM has spent over £2.5 million on their first batch of new single-decker buses since 1999. In total there are 38 buses operating on routes in the Black Country and Birmingham. The new of buses are evenly split between the Acocks Green and Walsall bus garages. They mainly operate on routes 37, 311 and 313, however they occasional drift onto other routes in the Solihull and Walsall areas.
Other single deckers in the fleet include the Volvo B6LE, Optare Solo, Alexander ALX200-bodied Dennis Dart SLF and Optare Excel.
Bendi-buses in the fleet comprise of Mercedes O405GN artics (6001-6011) currently at Travel Coventry, Mercedes O530G artics (6012-6021) also based at Travel Coventry and Scania CN94 OmniCity artics (6022-6032) based at Travel West Midlands Perry Barr Garage on the 67 "bendi-bus" route.
[edit] Double deckers
Metrobus MKII/A/DP - Once one of the largest operators of these vehicles, TWM is slowly replacing them with newer, easy access vehicles.
DAF DB250LF / Optare Spectra - The first of the newer batch of double deckers. Spectras 4001-4022 are based at Birmingham Central Garage. 4002 was used at Travel Dundee before being brought down for operations in Birmingham. 4014 was destroyed by fire in Kings Heath in late 2001. Originally for route 50, they are now mainly used on the Harborne routes (21, 22, 23, 29, 103), but do stray onto other BC routes.
Volvo B7TL / Plaxton President - Plaxtons 4023-4124 based mainly at Acocks Green and Birmingham Central garages. These are the new "kneeling" buses which Travel West Midlands bought in 1999.
Dennis Trident 2 - The main double decker in the Travel West Midlands fleet used on the majority of routes. Many have "route branding" on them with prime examples being seen on the Bristol Road, Coventry Road and Pershore Road branding on the side of many Tridents.
Volvo B7TL / Wright Eclipse Gemini - Many were brought in up to December 2004 to work on the routes where Metrobuses had been taken out of action. This model is used to operate the Outer Circle bus route 11A/C as well as other main services which include the 33, 72 and 169.
TWM also have demos of the new Scania OmniCity and Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 working on its routes as of January 2006.
[edit] Operation Safer Travel
Operation Safer Travel is the award-winning partnership between Travel West Midlands and West Midlands Police. Safer Travel aims to deter and detect crime, vandalism and graffiti on TWM's buses. It has been highly successful in doing this with over 211 joint 'gateway checks' carried out in 2005.
In order to help combat crime on TWM 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 for people who are wanted for arrest in the West Midlands.
They 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.
