First in Leicester

First in Leicester is the trading name of Leicester Citybus Ltd., a bus company owned by the First Group. It runs buses in the city of Leicester, England. It is managed as part of First Midlands which also looks after the First bus services in Northampton and Worcestershire.

History

First in Leicester is the descendant of the former municipal bus operations of Leicester City Council, Leicester City Transport (itself descended from Leicester Corporation Tramways. Under bus deregulation in 1986, the council operation was incorporated as the council owned but arms length private company, Leicester Citybus Ltd.. This was sold in November 1993 to the emerging private UK bus group, the Grampian Regional TransportGRT Group (this was shortly after the nearby Northampton municipal operator had also been bought by GRT). The GRT group later became FirstGroup, with the operations in Leicester subsequently being rebranded as First Leicester in the white First corporate livery.

Liveries

Leicester City Transport buses wore an allover cream livery with horizontal red stripes.^[1] On creation of the arms length company Leicester Citybus, buses began to wear a livery with more red, becoming a two tone cream and red scheme, and wore fleetnames of simply CityBus.^[2] Upon the takeover by GRT, the Leicester Citybus fleet began to wear a version of the GRT corporate livery, with the base and relief colours associated with Leicester City municipal buses, but in the corporate GRT arrangement, with Leicester citybus fleetnames and a spire motif.^[3] As with other GRT companies, upon First rebranding the livery remained for a while, but the fleetnames were reapplied in the First corporate typeface accompanied by the flying 'f' motif, before the launch of the white First corporate livery replaced this scheme.

Depot

In 2007, a new depot opened on Abbey Lane replacing the former premises on Abbey Park Road which go back to the company's municipal heritage, and was originally a tram depot. This site has now been demolished and is pending redevelopment.

Fleet

The First in Leicester fleet of 102 buses is completely low floor^[4]

The current bus types in use are:

• ALX400
• Wright Solar
• Volvo B7L
• Wright Eclipse Gemini

Services

City Centre

Services use Haymarket Bus Station or other on street city centre stops, but do not use St Margaret's Bus Station which is used by longer distance services. Services 22 and 54 stop at Leicester railway station.

Network

Services run to Glenfield, Kirby Frith, Braunstone Frith, Glenfield Hospital, Braunstone, Eyres Monsell, Evington, Leicester General Hospital, Goodwood, Netherhall, Thurnby Lodge, Hamilton, Thurmaston, Rushey Mead, Mowmacre Hill, Beaumont Shopping Centre, Beaumont Leys, Anstey, Highfields and New Parks.

List of routes

First in Leicester operate a number of services around Leicester:

Plusbus

First in Leicester participate in the Plusbus scheme. Plusbus tickets are available from Leicester Railway Station.

See also

• List of bus operators of the United Kingdom

References

External links

• First Leicester website
• First Leicester Network Map
• The Leicester Transport Heritage Trust
• First Leicester official twitter