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S5
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| Overview | |
| Operator | Uno |
| Garage | [HF] Hatfield Businesss Park |
| Vehicle | Mini Pointer Dart |
| Peak vehicle requirement | 1 |
| Predecessors | Sovereign Buses, Centrebus, London Country |
| Route | |
| Start | St Albans |
| Via | Holyrood Crescent, Maynard Drive |
| End | St Albans |
| Length | 3.8 miles |
| Service | |
| Frequency | 30 mins at all times (0900-1700 Not Sundays) |
| Weekend frequency | There is no service in the evenings/Sundays, see S4. |
Uno bus route S5 is a St Albans local bus service, linking the Cottonmill estate with the City Centre. It operates together with route S4.
Contents |
S5 was one of six new local routes introduced in St Albans by London Country Bus Services in October 1976[1]. They replaced a variety of earlier routes and were unusual for the time in being numbered with a lettered prefix (S) to designate the town or city they operated in rather than in the 3xx or 8xx series normally used for services in the area.
Upon the privatisation of London Country Bus Services in September 1986, the St Albans area network passed to successor company London Country North East. London Country North East was in turn divided into two companies, with Sovereign Bus & Coach acquiring the St Albans, Welwyn Hatfield and Stevenage local networks and various rural services connecting these towns.Bus deregulation a month later largely left the network unchanged with the daytime services being registered commercially and the evening services being tendered.
Sovereign itself was acquired by Blazefield Holdings and significant investment in the St Albans network was undertaken with a new fleet of Dennis Dart buses. During this period the services underwent frequent changes until the current pattern of the S5 (and its sister route S4) only serving the area to the south west of the City Centre (in place of providing cross-City links) was established. However, Brazefield could not make an adequate financial return on its Hertfordshire operations and began to dispose of them in favour of concentrating on its core Leeds and Yorkshire businesses in late 2003/2004.
The St Albans local network, along with various services connecting St Albans to other Hertfordshire towns, was sold to Liecestershire firm Centrebus who already had a small presence in the town on rural services run from its Luton base. Services largely remained unchanged and Centrebus kept all of the S4's designated vehicles (KC03 PGK and KC03 PGU), albeit repainting them a few times.
However, the City network remained problematic both operationally and financially and Uno took over all services operated from Centrebus' St Albans depot on 4 March 2008. Initially the fleet retained Centrebus livery, but during summer 2008 they were repainted into the Best Impressions designed livery to match the rest of the Uno buses.
S5 operates every 30 minutes on Monday to Saturday daytimes and it is jointly timetabled with Uno buses route S4 to provide a combined 15 minute frequency.