Recently, Steve Rotherham, the Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, announced the franchising of buses in Merseyside and which companies have been awarded which depots. Arriva will be leaving Liverpool in September and October, respectively, with Go Ahead and Stagecoach taking over under the Metro scheme. It will be sad to say goodbye to Arriva in Merseyside, but I do look forward to the future.

St Helen’s is the first to come under the new scheme, where publicly run bus services are operated by Transport for the Liverpool City Region and subsidised by Stagecoach. This scheme is very similar to how buses are run in London with Transport for London (TfL). TfL controls the services, although they are owned and operated by Arriva, First Group, and many other operators.

Wirral will follow in October with Go North West being awarded the franchise. All services on the Wirral will be operated from the Laird Street depot, where Arriva currently operates. All services will be renumbered into the 400 series. For example, the current services operated by A2B Travel will be renumbered as follows: 107/106 will become 406/407, and a new Liscard Seacombe Circular route will be launched and numbered 408. The 41/42 operated by Stagecoach will become 441/442, respectively.

I believe that the bus routes 22 and 22A will remain unchanged and be operated by Happy Als. Stagecoach will continue to run the X1 and 1 services between Chester and Liverpool, as these routes enter parts of Cheshire and terminate in Chester. The Rock Ferry depot will be used for other routes, such as school runs, and may also accommodate buses from the X1 and 1 services. However, the rest of the bus services on the Wirral will be numbered 4xx.

I will be out documenting the scene as they change and as all the new buses start to enter service later this year with Stagecoach and Go North West, I am unsure as to what models, however I believe we are getting Wright Streetdeck (Electroliners) for Stagecoach and possibly E400EVs for Go North West however do not quote me on this. A lot of the numbers in Liverpool will also be re numbered too.

Eventually, all buses will be repainted in the Metro colours, similar to the style of the Merseyrail livery on the Class 777s introduced in 2023, now three years ago. It is planned that the Merseyrail network will be brought back into public ownership after the contract with Serco ends in 2028. Instead of financing shareholders, ticket funds will go directly to the Council and the Mayor of Liverpool, allowing for a much better service and cheaper tickets too!

It will be interesting to see how everything works out for Steve Rotherham. I am looking forward to potentially seeing him again at the launch of the Franchising Model on the first day of operation, which I aim to attend with Stagecoach and Metro, depending on when that will be. However, there is no confirmed start date apart from sometime in September and October, respectively. If you want to be the first to see the updates, please subscribe.

Mayor Rotheram said, “We can put the public back into public transport, and we can do it not for profit or for passengers.