Liverpool Bus Services = shambles (Arriva)

Member Name: garyl

Product:	Arriva
Date:	23/05/01 (712 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Necessary

Disadvantages: Unreliable, Not enough room on services

18 months ago, arriva took over the local bus operator for the Liverpool MTL North. Almost from day one the services began to suffer.
Liverpool, like most major cities in the uk has numerous bus routes serving a large catchment area and many out of reach communities. The local Passenger transport executive (Merseytravel) sponsors and provides most of the resources to provide these services.
When arriva arrived on the scene, a lot of the main routes in the liverpool area, most notably the 82 liverpool - speke, 10 liverpool - dovey, 14,f4,f5 liverpool to croxteth and several others were transfered from double decker operation to poxy 33 seater single deck buses. This led to immediate chaos prompting Merseytravel to issue public warnings within the first month of operation - an ominous sign. Services then seemed to settle for a whilebut then more and more of the double deck fleet was withdrawn, leaving popular commuter communities having to wait for 3 or 4 buses to come before eventually being able to squeeze on one. Rural routes were being restricted on the times and public opinion has reached an all time low.
I have wrote to arriva on several occasions explaining my grievance however, like some of their buses, a reply has not arrived at all!!
If anyone is planning to visit Liverpool and has any intention of using the bus services, i would strongly urge people to ring the "Merseytravel Line" on 0151 236-7676. This is a passenger transport executive run service which can give you all local bus, rail and ferry information.

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