Reading Transport - New Millennium

www.buszone.co.uk

Before this was: Deregulation - 1980s & 1990s

By October 2004 the foundations had been set for the introduction of the Premier Route concept, the most frequent and well used services gaining individual route branded colours based on a standard layout as fleets of new vehicles entered service, starting with the most important route 17. The new standard livery became gray and beige with a silver swoosh, with the gray replaced with the appropriate route branded colour on branded routes. Gray vehicles, later termed 'generic' vehicles, were for use on any route when the branded vehicles were not available. The gray was later amended to silver to help brighten the appearance of the vehicles.

801 on 24 September 2004

An updated version of the livery was introduced in December 2010, replacing the beige with a second shade of the main branded colour, and the "oval" logo with the "colour bar" logo.

201 on 13 December 2010

Reading Buses Logo (2304 bytes)   Reading Buses Logo 2014

The last vehicles with the oval logo were repainted in 2017, reflecting the speed and rate at which the company now refreshes its vehicles. A general policy was established in 2017 that all vehicles in the core Reading fleet would be refurbished after 5 years, and then at 10 years either replaced or refurbished again for a further 5 years service on other routes.

A number of significant expansions took place in the late 2010s on the back of a policy of profitable expansion to increase returns to the shareholder:

16 June 2014 - The Leopard (6 vehicles)

Route 144 between Reading, Arborfield and Wokingham was taken over commercially upon re-tendering by Wokingham Borough Council, including enhancements between Reading and Arborfield that were being provided commercially by the previous operator Thames Travel. Branded as the Leopard 3, six brand new vehicles were diverted from other routes to operate it. Three further vehicles were subsequently added in 2016, 2017 and 2018 as operations with parallel Reading Buses route 9 were gradually merged, and new housing and retail developments prompted additional enhancements to the service.
 
Thames Travel had operated the 144 under contract to Wokingham Council since the collapse of Tillingbourne on 19th March 2001, for a time interworking it with route X38 from Oxford and Wallingford to Reading.

26 July 2015 - The Lion (10 vehicles)

Reading Buses purchased route 90 (Reading - Wokingham - Bracknell) from First ahead of their planned closure of Bracknell depot, operating it on First's registration between 26th July and 31st August 2015 with some vehicles out-stationed at First's Bracknell depot until service could be reregistered and rescheduled to run from Reading. It was rebranded the Lion 4/X4 from 31st August 2015. Initially 9 vehicles were allocated, but this was rapidly increased to 10 to improve reliability. Eight refurbished vehicles were released by new deliveries into the fleet to operate the service, supplemented by two second hand vehicles.

27 December 2017 - Green Line 702 & Thames Valley (11 vehicles)

First Berkshire, the successor to the Slough, Bracknell and Maidenhead parts of The Bee Line decided to stop running the long standing 702 between Bracknell, Windsor, Slough and London after Saturday 23 December 2017. Reading Buses saw an opportunity to replace the service to generate profitable long-term growth, believing that it had been significantly under promoted in previous few years, and so registered a replacement from Wednesday 27 December, with a free heritage running day taking place on 24th December to provide continuity of service.
 
The service operated from Reading using 6 vehicles, with placement journeys operating in service between Reading and Bracknell to create additional links.
 
First Berkshire then announced that they would be withdrawing Slough routes 2, 5, 10/11 and 15 after 30th January 2018. Reading Buses registered a replacement for route 2 between Dedworth, Windsor and Slough commercially to supplement the 702, and won an emergency contract to run route 5 from Slough to Cippenham, requiring a total of 5 buses to be based at a small outstation at Slough Bus Station under a new Thames Valley brand from 30th January 2018. Competition from Courtney Buses on route 2 saw the 2 quickly withdrawn after 5th May 2018, the resource moving to allow the 702 to be split at Legoland, and new route 703 to be overlaid between Slough, Windsor and Legoland, but also starting from Heathrow and extended to Bracknell.

16 April 2018 - The Tiger (2 vehicles)

The Reading to Hartley Wintney section of Route 7 (Reading - Spencers Wood - Hartley Wintney - Fleet - Aldershot) was purchased from Stagecoach South, along with two vehicles and extended to Fleet Station. Reading Buses rebranded the route Tiger using two cascaded vehicles in September 2018, and were already running Wokingham subsidised evening journeys as far as Riseley. Additional journeys running as route 8 to Farnham were withdrawn by Stagecoach without replacement.
 
The 7 ended up being operated by Stagecoach following their acquisition of Fleet Buzz in December 2011. Fleet Buzz operated the route as their number 72 following the collapse of Tillingbourne in March 2001, the number being changed from traditional route 12 to avoid clashing with Reading Buses route 12. Reading Buses also provided similar routes 111 and 112 to Spencers Wood and Riseley until their final withdrawal on 13th July 2009.

13 September 2018 - Newbury & District (27 vehicles)

Newbury & District Ltd was acquired from the Weavaway group on 13th September 2018, including a depot at Greenham Business Park near Newbury and 24 vehicles. Maintenance transferred from Tappins depot at Didcot to Mill Lane in Newbury, the site in Greenham Park being purely for parking and offices, but Mill Lane too small to accommodate the parking. The gain of three additional school contracts and the need for some engineering spare vehicles led to six vehicles being added to the fleet on completion, and then three others were taken away after competitive operations were rationalised from 23rd April 2019.

30 April 2019 - Courtney Buses (53 vehicles)

Courtney Coaches Ltd, Courtney Bodyworks Ltd and Courtney ATF Ltd were purchased on 30th April 2019 following announcement that terms for the acquisition had been agreed on 5th March. This included the main depot in Bracknell and a support site at Hogwood Industrial Estate, several outstations, and 53 vehicles.
 
Originally formed by the purchase of a couple of taxi firms in Wokingham in 1973, the company changed direction and moved into coach hire in the 1980s, becoming Courtney Coaches including corporate contracts and servicing business parks. In 2000 they won their first local bus contract in Bracknell, and gradually refocused on local bus operations, rebranding as Courtney Buses in late 2011.
 
Courtney Buses won a number of tenders in Bracknell from 13th July 2015, prompting First to withdraw its remaining commercial operations in the town and close it's Bracknell depot after 29th August 2015. Green Line route 702 was moved to operate from First's Slough depot. After a period of difficult negotiations, First eventually allowed Courtney Buses to take on the lease of their Bracknell depot Coldborough House in Market Street, albeit in the knowledge that it had been sold for imminent redevelopment, and one of the reasons why First wished to close it.
 
The date for the closure of Coldborough House was announced whilst the acquisition was being finalised, leading to the slight delay in completion. Operations relocated to a new site at The Maple Centre in Bracknell on 22nd May 2019, whilst the workshop temporarily moved to Hogwood for six weeks whilst the new workshop adjacent to the Maple Centre was vacated by the previous occupier.
 
Reading Buses "Thames Valley" operations in Slough were transferred to Courtney Buses from 3 November 2019. Courtney's Slough based routes were relocated from Bracknell to Slough under the Thames Valley name and merged to form a single network. Meanwhile Reading Buses Green Line 703 moved from Slough to Bracknell, but as a Reading Buses service with drivers supplied by Courtney.

Other key milestones include:

  • 5th September 2016 - regaining the West Berkshire Council contracts for Newbury services (and commercial Thatcham locals 101/102) rebranded Kennections (7 vehicles)
  • 17th September 2019 - won contract to operate the National Express 925 Woking - Heathrow service (2 vehicles + 1 spare)

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