First South Yorkshire

First South Yorkshire is the largest bus operator in South Yorkshire, England. The company is a division of FirstGroup which was founded in 1998 following the purchase of Mainline Group; the company operated for a time as First Mainline before adopting the current name.

Mainline
The "Mainline" brand identity was launched in 1989 by South Yorkshire Transport. Buses traded with Sheffield Mainline names in a bright red and yellow livery, replacing the beige/red livery used before. It was followed by Doncaster Mainline in a silver grey and red livery relieved by a light yellow band and finally Rotherham Mainline, whose buses ran in blue and yellow.

In 1992 the locality was dropped when Mainline became the standard fleetname across the whole county. The livery was slightly modified, being based on the former Sheffield Mainline livery which silver and blue bands added to represent Rotherham and Doncaster.

In 1993, South Yorkshire Transport was sold to its employees, and Mainline became a separate company in its own right, named Mainline Group Ltd.. At this time, Mainline operated most bus services in South Yorkshire (thanks mainly to the former monopoly position of SYT), though other operators such as Leon Motors, Wilfreda Beehive, Andrew's of Sheffield and Yorkshire Terrier started making inroads. The company was generally popular with passengers, and boasted an extensive network with low fares and modern vehicles. Shortly after Mainline Group's foundation Stagecoach purchased a 20% stake in the company, however this was sold off in 1995, when the newly created FirstGroup took over the stake.

First Mainline
In 1998, FirstGroup expanded on their 20% stake bought some three years previously and bought Mainline Group outright. The company was renamed First Mainline, and buses were repainted into a simplified red-and-yellow livery, reminiscent of the original 1989 Sheffield Mainline livery.

First South Yorkshire

In 2000, the company was renamed once again to First South Yorkshire. At this point, FirstGroup scrapped the red-and-yellow altogether and began to roll out their purple, pink, and white corporate livery (nicknamed "Barbie").

From 2012, First South Yorkshire began to roll out the brand new FirstGroup corporate livery. This is a modernised version of the old "Barbie", which consists of pink and purple bands on a lilac base, with more prominent locality and route branding.

Depots

 * Leger Way, Doncaster (DN)
 * Midland Road, Rotherham (RO)
 * Olive Grove, Sheffield (OG)

Fleet
First received a large batch of Volvo B10BLEs in 1999 as well as a number of Volvo B7Ls (most from First Manchester) and B7TLs between 2002–2004; most of these were however allocated to Sheffield, where 10 Volvo B7TLs/Wright Eclipse Gemini also entered service during summer 2006. Secondhand Volvo Olympians (Northern Counties) were cascaded from London and now make up the entire step entrance double decker fleet.

Save for the 10 Geminis, the fleet changed very little from 2003 until 2007 when First invested £6.4 million in 38 new double-decker buses. Twenty Volvo B9TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini double-decker buses arrived to upgrade the X78 route to low-floor operation; these new buses entered service on 1 June 2007. All twenty buses are now based at Rotherham's Midland Road garage, although previously they were to be shared with Doncaster's Leger Way depot. Doncaster received the remaining 18 of these buses in early 2008. These operate services 50, 55 and 78 as part of the Woodlands to Rossington Quality Bus Corridor. Shortly afterwards, an order for 58 more of the same buses was announced, and the majority of these have now entered service in Sheffield on routes 47/48/75/76.

Dennis Dominators were the main double deckers in the fleet with over 300 at one time. These have steadily been withdrawn and the last ran in service on 26 July 2006. Some older Volvo B10Ms with Alexander PS bodywork (new to Mainline) have been converted to driver training buses, while some are operating in Scotland with First Glasgow, and a large batch of the newest ones were cascaded to Glasgow, although these have started to slowly be withdrawn. A wave of new buses has allowed many of the older B10Ms to finally leave the fleet in 2010, and has also seen off the last of the step entrance Plaxton Pointers (both Dennis Dart and Volvo B6 chassis example were operated).

As of September 2013 the following bus types are operated:


 * Volvo B9TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini - all depots ( Large number came from FWY in September 2012 for services 47/48
 * Volvo B7TL /Alexander ALX400 - all depots
 * Volvo B7TL / Wright Eclipse Gemini - Sheffield ( In September 2012 a large amount of B7TL Geminis came for route 51 ex FWY
 * Volvo B7L/Wright Eclipse - all depots
 * Volvo B7RLE/Wright Eclipse - all depots
 * Volvo Olympian/Northern Counties Palatine - Sheffield
 * Optare Solo - Doncaster, M850 version
 * Volvo B10BLE/Wright Renown - all depots
 * TransBus Dart - Doncaster
 * Volvo B7TL/TransBus ALX400 - Doncaster
 * Volvo B6LE/Wright Crusader - Doncaster
 * Volvo B6BLE/Wright Crusader 2 - Doncaster
 * Volvo B7TL/Plaxton President - Sheffield - former London & replaced Volvo B7RLEs which were cascaded to Rotherham
 * Dennis Trident 2/Plaxton President - Sheffield - former London & replaced Volvo Olympian's
 * Wright Streetlite - Sheffield / Rotherham

Routes
First South Yorkshire run services in Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. Due to bus services history and number changes, some routes share service numbers within South Yorkshire.

Service X78 is a limited stop service which goes from Sheffield Interchange via Meadowhall, Rotherham and arriving an hour and a half later in Doncaster Frenchgate Interchange. From Monday to Saturday it operates every ten minutes during the day and every fifteen minutes on Sundays and week day evenings.

Service 91, Airport Services, departs from Doncaster Frenchgate Interchange and arrives approximately twenty-eight minutes later at Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport. This bus has luggage racks for passengers located at the front of the bus.

First also run Peak District services; 272, from Sheffield, across the South Yorkshire boundary and into Derbyshire in the Peak District. Local or South Yorkshire FirstDay/Week/Month tickets are only valid up to the Sheffield boundary. Special day tickets must be purchased on board to travel on First South Yorkshire buses in Derbyshire. See ticketing

First also ran 215, 218, 240 to the Peak District, but as of 27 April 2009 First withdrew these services, and TM Travel operate these routes on behalf of Derbyshire County Council.

Overground
First branded some services as Overground on bus services with high frequency during the daytime. Based on the London Underground network where each frequent service is given a recognisable colour, each Overground service is, in addition to its running number, colour-coded.

This system originally appeared on the exterior of buses, but this was later removed as buses were upgraded. Now, while the system is still in use on First's official website, it is not used to identify buses on its original scale.

Criticism
First lost many routes to other competition recently, particularly in Sheffield. Some routes are either shared with another company or completely run by a competitor. This caused Stagecoach Sheffield and TM Travel ridership to increase and First's large share of the market to decrease dramatically. This only continued under the implementation of the Simplicity programme.

First attracted criticism for raising fares four times in 2005, raising the cost of a 5-10 minute journey to £1.60 as of February 2007, as well as for cutting a number of services. But the fares for the 51 service (Charnock-Lodge Moor via City Centre and back) were frozen. Referring to low passenger numbers in an interview, First South Yorkshire's managing director, Gary Nolan. said that on some routes. his drivers were "carting fresh air about" and, as such, it was uneconomical to maintain current service levels.

The company also attracted criticism from the public concerning why First introduced several price rises in just two years, whilst regional competitors such as Arriva and Stagecoach managed to cap their fare rises. The group's then financial director Nicola Shaw attributed the increases in fares to rising oil prices, despite the fact that in on press releases the group has said that it had hedged all of its fuel purchases to offset the rising cost of oil.

The company was also criticised for the seating comfort of newer vehicles and for withdrawing the 'bendibus' from the roads of Sheffield. The company later went on to explain that the vehicles had been withdrawn 'due to their mileage', but these were later found to be in service at both Bristol airport and in Bath.

The company has suffered from poor industrial relations with drivers striking on many occasions due to pay and working conditions. In such strikes, management employees tried to run a skeleton service by driving the buses themselves.