West Midlands Dudley Road bus corridor

The Dudley Road bus corridor is a collection of bus services operated in the West Midlands, United Kingdom.

History
The routes originally formed part of a jointly-worked Birmingham City Transport / Midland Red high-frequency bus operation known as 'The Track' on account of its origins as a tramway, and with its City Centre terminus in Edmund Street in Birmingham. The original route variations and short workings comprised:-

Service 80 - Birmingham-Grove Lane

Service 81 - Birmingham - Cape Hill/Windmill Lane

Service 82 - Birmingham-Bearwood

Service 83 - Birmingham-Soho

Service 84 - Birmingham-Smethwick (Saint Paul's Road)

Service 85 - Birmingham-West Smethwick (Spon Croft)

Service 86 - Birmingham-Oldbury

Service 87 - Birmingham-Dudley

Service 88 - Dudley - Oldbury

Service 89 - Dudley - Smethwick (Grove Lane)

Services 80, 81, 82 & 83 were operated from BCT's Rosebery Street depot and Services 84-89 largely from Midland Red's Oldbury depot (though most Midland Red journeys were worked as either Service 86s or 87s). For many years, an operating agreement prevented Midland Red using their high-capacity D9 double-deckers on these routes. Up until the late 1960s buses ran with 'B' prefixs on their service number blinds (i.e.: showing B82, B87, etc.), although this practice was eventually dropped, first by BCT and then by Midland Red. The routes were wholly operated by West Midlands PTE from 1973 until deregulation in 1986. During this period, the use of some of the short working numbers ceased and by 1980 only route numbers 82, 83 and 87 were used.

A different route 88 commenced operation in August 1980, running from Birmingham via Dudley Road, Cape Hill, Smethwick Old Church, the Uplands and Londonderry (Queen's Head) to Oldbury. This was later diverted away from Oldbury to serve Causeway Green and Blackheath instead. In March 2010 service 88 was re-numbered 89 and diverted to serve Oldbury again instead of Blackheath.

For a brief period in the late 1980s West Midlands Travel extended certain 87 journey to Netherton and Cradley Heath as Service 89.

Route 82

 * Birmingham
 * City Hospital
 * Cape Hill
 * Bearwood

Route 87

 * Birmingham
 * City Hospital
 * Cape Hill
 * Smethwick
 * Oldbury
 * Tividale
 * Dudley

Route 89

 * Birmingham
 * City Hospital
 * Cape Hill
 * Londonderry
 * Smethwick
 * Oldbury
 * Blackheath

Current frequencies & allocations
Service 82 runs every 10 minutes during the day, 15 minutes on Sunday & half hourly on evenings.

Service 87 runs every 10 minutes during the day, 15 minutes on Sunday & half hourly on evenings.

Service 89 runs every 20 minutes during the day, hourly on Sunday & half hourly on evenings. Late evening journeys only serve between Birmingham & Smethwick.

All three services combine a frequency between Birmingham & Cape Hill, via Dudley Road of every 5 minutes during the daytime, 7/8 minutes on Sundays and every 15 minutes on evenings.

Volvo B7TL Wright Eclipse Gemini buses are allocated to routes 82 & 87 with pink 'every 5 minutes' route branding.

Mercedes-Benz O405N buses are allocated to route 89.