First Berkshire & The Thames Valley

First Berkshire & The Thames Valley is a bus operator serving Bracknell, Slough and Wokingham, in England. It is part of First Group, a major bus and train operator with a turnover of nearly £2.5 billion a year and 62,000 employees across the UK and North America. The division operates around 120 vehicles and employs 300 staff.

History

First Berkshire & The Thames Valley was previously the Berks Bucks Bus Company [ [http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk Companies House webcheck] Company number 2179403] , trading as the Beeline, one of the successor companies to Alder Valley, privatised in 1987. The business originally operated in High Wycombe, Reading and Newbury, as well as its current area, and was owned by a group called Q-Drive. In 1990 the High Wycombe operations were sold to the Oxford Bus Company, and in 1992 the Reading and Newbury operations were purchased by Reading Transport - which still operates them. The rest of the company was sold in 1999 to First, who renamed the company First Beeline Buses Ltd. [ [http://www.buszone.co.uk/FBeeline.html Bus Zone - "First Beeline and Berkshire & The Thames Valley"] Accessed 30 April 2008]

First Group took the decision to corporately brand their services in 2001/2, and First Beeline took the trading name of First Berkshire & The Thames Valley. [ [http://www.buszone.co.uk/FBeeline.html Bus Zone - "First Beeline and Berkshire & The Thames Valley"] Accessed 30 April 2008]

Services

The company currently operate just under 30 services, currently operating most of the town services in Bracknell, Slough and Wokingham, as well as services to surrounding areas such as Heathrow Airport, High Wycombe and Reading.

As well as normal First branded services, there are five specially branded groups of routes. Some routes to Heathrow Airport are run with blue "Heathrow 7 Series" Mercedes-Benz Citaros. Some of these are newer (2007) buses, some are from 2003 which were originally in a silver livery in a standard BAA template, all are now blue. Similarly, some routes in Slough are branded as "Slough Trading Estate Hoppa", and use red liveried Optare Solos (these were previous purple and branded as "Linx"). The Legoland Shuttle is run with yellow buses in Legoland graphics.

Coach services are also run under different brands. The Reading to Heathrow RailAir service uses "RailAir" branded services, and routes 700, 701 and 702 use Green Line liveried vehicles. [ [http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/southeast/berkshirethames/timetables/index.php First Berkshire & The Thames Valley - Timetables] Accessed 30 april 2008]

Standard routes

Other services

First Berkshire & The Thames Valley operate two school buses schemes. One uses American-style school buses, running around Runnymede, from an outstation in Chertsey; the other is Ride Pegasus!, the larger scheme, run under contract to Surrey Country Council. This is run from an outstation in Merrow, Guildford. A number of routes are operated, as well as some non-school "Access Bus" service, primarily for senior citizens. [ [http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/southeast/berkshirethames/about/index.php First Berkshire & The Thames Valley - "About us"] Accessed 30 April 2008] [ [http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Accessbus+services+operated+by+Ride+Pegasus?opendocument Surrey County Council - Access Buses] Accessed 10 May 2008]

References

External links

* [http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/southeast/berkshirethames/home/index.php First Berkshire & The Thames Valley website]
* [http://www.firstgroup.com First Group website]