Greater Manchester Launches Final Phase of Bus Franchising, West Midlands Launch Consultation on Bus Franchising, and Silvertown Tunnel to Open on 7 April 2025

Volvo BZL Double-Deck For The Bee Network - Photo by TfGM

Firstly, Happy New Year 2025 to my readers! I hope we will progress positively in this new chapter.

On 5th January, Greater Manchester finally launched the final phase of bus franchising, which means that control of bus services has been fully regained by the transport authority, Transport for Greater Manchester, as part of the Bee Network brand.

New era for Wrightbus as Birmingham City Council orders double deck hydrogens - delivery commences for Aberdeen…

It’s been a year since Wrightbus went in to Administration and were taken over by Jo Bamford.

This week, there has been progress in Wrightbus with their double deck hydrogen rollout.

From Birmingham City Council News Release

Birmingham City Council has purchased 20 new hydrogen double decker buses as part of their Clean Air Hydrogen Bus Pilot.

The Clean Air Hydrogen Bus Pilot looks to ‘kick-start’ the hydrogen market as a viable zero-emission fuel with the procurement and deployment of 20 hydrogen buses in Birmingham. The buses, which are made by Wrightbus and are the world's first zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell double deckers, will be introduced with National Express West Midlands from April 2021.

It’s intended that pilot will be the catalyst for the next generation of hydrogen buses, hydrogen production and re-fuelling infrastructure development. The council have also collaborated with ITM, who will be producing and dispensing the hydrogen fuel from the new re-fuelling hub at Tyseley Energy Park.

Go Ahead Group wins Dublin Bus contract but loses West Midlands Rail franchise

Go Ahead has won a contract from Ireland’s National Transport Authority (NTA) to operate 24 bus routes in Dublin but they lost the West Midlands rail franchise.

From National Transport Authority Ireland

Go-Ahead has been selected as the preferred bidder for the contract relating to the operation of 24 Public Service Obligation (PSO) bus routes in the Dublin metropolitan area. NTA has written to Go-Ahead to inform the company of the decision. Go-Ahead is expected to begin operating some of these routes by the end of November 2018 and all routes by February 2019.

Chief Executive of the National Transport Authority Anne Graham said:

National Express West Midlands buys 5 Streetdecks

National Express has purchased five Wrightbus Streetdecks with Euro 6 engines for their services.