Bluebird Bus - Stagecoach Takeover
As many of you already know Stagecoach have gained the go-ahead to purchase Bluebird Bus & Coach of Middleton (Manchester). Stagecoach are the second biggest public transport provider in the UK, and this isn't their biggest recent purchase, they have recently bought Chester and Wigan's First depots, expanding their dominance through out Manchester. With this purchase of Bluebird though they are not only expanding into North Manchester but directly competing with other companies in these areas.
In mid 2012 Stagecoach increased their services on the 76 route (Manchester - Oldham, via Failsworth), attempting to compete with First on their links to Limeside (Oldham) as well as Manchester. This has had some success, their 76 service does seem to be more popular than it used to be, this may have something to do with their lower prices too.
Bluebird bus run many services throughout Greater Manchester but mainly focused around Middleton and the surrounding area, their main route the 112 (as pictured) runs from Middleton to Manchester via Middleton Junction & Moston. This is by far their most popular service. Here is where some controversy comes into play, the 112 route is also ran by JPTravel, another Middleton based company. Stagecoach will no doubt be increasing their services on this route and finding other methods to bully JPT away from this route. This is one of the reasons the OFT have been involved heavily in this deal, Bluebird and JPTravel competed on this route in a civilised manor, both companies had their fair share of passengers, my fear is that JPT may be bullied off this route, and although I don't think they are the best ran company in the world, I do not like to see independent local companies going down.
On the other hand Bluebird have had financial trouble over the years which has resulted in them doing some less than reputable actions, such as failing to repair their vehicles to proper condition, many destination boards not working, mismatched vehicle colours and in some cases even filling up the bus with diesel whilst in service (not sure on the legality of this final one). So a buyout by a big company with huge bank accounts will no doubt solve all of these problems.
Stagecoach have "lent" a few buses to Bluebird with the Stagecoach name on them (as pictured), this is widely suspected to be purely for publicity saying "WE ARE HERE" rather than Bluebird needing new buses, the buses they had were fine, not in the best condition, but they did the job.
All bluebird services will start to be ran under the name Stagecoach as of the 3rd of March 2013, in two days. We shall see what happens on this day.
