East Yorkshire Motor Services

East Yorkshire Motor Services

Wright Eclipse Gemini bodied Volvo B7TL in September 2012
Founded	1926
Headquarters	Hull
Service area	East Riding of Yorkshire North Yorkshire
Service type	Bus & coach services
Depots	Hull Beverley Bridlington Elloughton Hornsea Pocklington Scarborough Withernsea
Fleet	316 (December 2016)
Chief executive	Peter Shipp
Website	www.eyms.co.uk

East Yorkshire Motor Services^[1] (EYMS) is a bus and coach operator operating throughout Kingston upon Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire, the North Yorkshire coast and the North York Moors. In and around Scarborough, EYMS operates as Scarborough & District Motor Services.^[2]

History

East Yorkshire Motor Services buses at Hull Paragon Interchange in May 2008

East Yorkshire Motor Services at Scarborough depot in May 2009

Hornsea depot in June 2012

Finglands Coachways' Northern Counties Palatine bodied Volvo Olympian at Manchester Piccadilly bus station in July 2008

EYMS was originally two companies, Lee & Beaulah, set up by Ernest John Lee, and Hull & District Motor Services, set up by HA Harvey. In 1926 British Electric Traction bought the two and formed EYMS to take them over.^[1] In 1968 BET was sold to the Transport Holding Company, which in 1969 became the National Bus Company (NBC). The livery of East Yorkshire was dark blue and primrose until 1972, when it briefly changed to blue with white relief in the NBC corporate layout, but soon this was replaced by NBC poppy red.^[3]

In the lead up to privatisation in 1987, EYMS's fleet, which had dropped to 200 vehicles and shared management with Lincolnshire Road Car, started to grow again. United Automobile Services' depots in Scarborough and Pickering were transferred to EYMS and rebranded Scarborough & District.^[4][5]

In February 1987 EYMS was sold in a management buyout led by seven managers.^[6] EYMS began to expand, purchasing many of the independent operators in its local area, including Connor & Graham,^[7] Cottingham Mini Coaches^[8] and Primrose Valley Coaches.^[9] The liveries at privatisation were silver/blue, NBC poppy red and NBC's minibus livery of silver, blue and red. The red buses soon started receiving red/grey livery.

The Hardwick's of Scarborough fleet was purchased from Wallace Arnold, Wallace Arnold's last bus company. In Hull some AEC Routemasters entered service in traditional pre-NBC EYMS blue to compete with Kingston upon Hull City Transport, and it suffered competition in Hull, Bridlington and Scarborough from Applebys. In 1999 Applebys closed its Scarborough base. Soon afterwards it went into receivership.

Its first expansion outside its home area was in 1992 with the purchase of Finglands Coachways of Rusholme, Manchester.^[10] In 1995 the original Stagecoach Manchester operation was added (not to be confused with the present day Stagecoach Manchester, against which Finglands is in competition on South Manchester routes). The next expansion outside Yorkshire was the purchase of Whittle Bus & Coach of Kidderminster in January 2004.^[11]

On 1 August 2013, FirstGroup announced that subject to regulatory approval by the Office of Fair Trading, it had agreed to purchase the bus operations of Finglands Coachways. The sale included the lease of Finglands's depot in Rusholme, routes and approximately 100 members of staff, but no buses.^[12][13] The deal was approved in January 2014 with First Greater Manchester taking over on 9 February 2014.^[14][15][16]

In October 2013 EYMS sold the Fingland's coach charter business to Bullocks Coaches.^[17]

In order to cut costs and improve service reliability the depot at Driffield closed at the end of service on 31 May 2014.^[18]

In December 2014, the Whittle coach business was sold to Johnsons Coach & Bus Travel with nine coaches.^[19][20][21] The National Express services were taken over by National Express subsidiary company, and all the Whittle local bus registrations cancelled from 5 January 2015.^[22][23]

Coach operations

Coaches are operated for hire, day trips and short holidays. As well as running under the East Yorkshire Coaches name, EYC traded as Frodingham Coaches from November 2001 until October 2007 after the purchase of that company.^[24] The previous coaching operation, East Yorkshire Travel, was once a nationwide operator, but was sold to the Godfrey Burley Group in 1996.

National Express

EYMS are a National Express contractor and operate services on the following routes:

• 031 Portsmouth - London
• 322 Hull - Swansea
• 327 Scarborough - Bristol
• 447 Hull - London
• 448 Hull/Peterborough - London
• 449 Mablethorpe - London
• 484 Walton-on-the-Naze - London
• 562 Hull - London
• 563 Scarborough - London

Fleet

EYMS's fleet is dominated by Volvos, but also features other types, including Mercedes-Benz, Dennis and Optares. As at December 2016, the fleet consisted of 316 buses and coaches.^[25] In May 2015, it was the first operator to take delivery of a MCV EvoSeti.^[26]

A heritage fleet is maintained consisting of PD2, a Willowbrook bodied AEC Regent with Beverley Bar roof, an open top Bristol Lodekka purchased July 2014 and a Duple Vista bodied Bedford OB.^[27]

Acquisitions

EYMS Buses

• 1987: Cherry Coaches, Beverley; Wallace Arnold, Scarborough (including Hardwicks)
• 1992: Thornton Dale Coaches, Pickering; Rhodes Coaches, Wawne (buses); Metro Citybus, Hull;
• 1993/4: Connor & Graham, Easington
• 1997: Kingstonian Travel Services, Hull (from Stagecoach in Hull)
• 2001: Frodingham Coaches, North Frodingham, Driffield
• 2009: Veolia in Hull

Out of Area

• 1992–2014: Finglands Coachways, Manchester
• 2004–2008: Whittle Coach & Bus, Ludlow
• 2004–2015: Whittle Coach & Bus, Kidderminster

EYMS Coaches

• 1988: Phillip's Coaches, Shiptonthorpe
• 1995: Hart Coaches, Stockton-on-Tees
• 1996: Charterplan (from Stagecoach Manchester); Hollings Coaches, North Shields
• 1997: Armstrong Galley (from Stagecoach North East)

Moorsbus

East Yorkshire used to operate two Moorsbus duties from its Hull depot. These were normally operated by Wright Eclipse bodied Volvo B7RLEs. These ended in 2013 although the registration was kept until the following year. This was due to the withdrawal of funding from the Moors National Park due to budget cuts.In early 2014, East Yorkshire registered ME1, standing for Moors Explorer 1, which replaced the previous M13 and M14 services from Hull. The new service runs from Hessle Square in Hessle to the park visitor centre at Danby closely following the old route.

This is being run on a commercial basis by EYMS and has proved very popular with both local residents and visitors to the Moors using the previous vehicle arrangement, although two double deck buses have been spotted operating. Because of this the company does not accept disabled or pensioner passes for free travel, but does allow them to be used for discounted travel. Able bodied passengers must purchase a "Go Anywhere" ticket which allows travel over all EYMS services allowing connections to Scarbrough. Intermediate fares are also possible between certain sections of the route. In November 2014, East Yorkshire confirmed they would run ME1 during the summer of 2015.^[28]

Documentary

The company was the subject of an eight-part documentary series On the Yorkshire Buses shown by Channel 5 from 11 July 2014.^[29] The series was narrated by Simon Farnaby.^[30]

References

External links

Media related to East Yorkshire Motor Services at Wikimedia Commons

• EYMS website
• Scarborough and District website