Arriva Guildford & West Surrey

Arriva Guildford & West Surrey is a bus operator based in Guildford, England, part of the Arriva group. The company operates services in West Sussex and Surrey, as part of the Arriva Southern Counties division. The company also holds the Guildford park and ride contract.

History
Buses in the Guildford area had been operated since the pre-war period by the expanding private operator Aldershot & District Traction. In the late 1960s as part of the process of nationalisation, this company became a subsidiary of the National Bus Company (UK) National Bus Company (NB). In the early 1970s the subsidiary was renamed, becoming part of the enlarged Alder Valley NBC subsidiary. In preparation for the deregulation of bus services, services in the area passed to a smaller NBC subsidiary, Alder Valley South. This company was privatised in 1987, and rebranded itself Alder Valley once more. The Guildford & West Surrey brand name was first created in 1990, when the Guildford operations of the new Alder Valley company were sold to London & Country, becoming a part of that company. London & Country at the time was owned by the Drawlane Group, one of the predecessor companies of Arriva. London & Country itself was a rebranding of the privatised London Country South West NBC subsidiary. Buses in the area began wearing the Guildford & West Surrey fleet name and livery in the style of the new London & Country colours, although London & Country branded buses also operated in the area The company was renamed Arriva Guildford & West Surrey Ltd in 2001 with the launch of the Arriva corporate brand, with buses being repainted into the corporate livery, initially with the strapline serving Surrey and West Sussex. The company was later incorporated into the Arriva Southern Counties division, dropping the strapline, and trading as Arriva Southern Counties. On 7 March 2007, the Arriva West Sussex license (operating buses from a depot in Horsham) was not continued, with the vehicles at Horsham transferring to the Arriva Guildford & West Surrey license. However, it was announced in September 2009 that the Horsham operations would be sold to Metrobus, with all routes transferring to Crawley depot (the Horsham depot at Warnham being left unused). All staff and 19 single-decker buses were transferred to Metrobus from 3 October 2009. Arriva maintain a presence in Horsham through hourly service 63 (Guildford - Horsham), which is operated by Cranleigh depot, though it was amended to remove a local section of route in Horsham.

Operating area
The company operates in parts of West Sussex as well as Surrey. The route network is centred on hubs at Guildford, Woking with Cranleigh and Dorking acting as smaller hubs. Services also reach the towns of Redhill in the East, Weybridge in the north east, Horsham in the south east and Camberley in the west.

Routes
Services 26/27 and 36/37 are the clockwise/counter-clockwise services of two circular routes.

Guildford park and ride
Arriva operates the Guildford park and ride for Surrey County Council. There are 5 car parks. The Ladymead P&R site replaces the Spectrum Leisure Centre car park on Saturdays because the Spectrum car park is too small for Park and Ride and the leisure centre purposes on a Saturday.
 * Artington: Route 200 (Monday - Saturday)
 * Spectrum Lesiure Centre: Route 100 (Monday - Friday)
 * Ladymead: Route 101 (Saturday only)
 * Merrow : Service 300 (run by Safeguard)
 * University of Surrey Car Park 3: Normal Arriva Routes 3, 26, 27, 36, 37 (Saturdays only)
 * Merrow Construction began of a new site at Merrow in 2007, it opened on 29 September 2008 but is operated by Safeguard Coaches.

Mercedes-Benz World
Service 436 is operated in partnership with Mercedes-Benz because it calls at the Mercedes-Benz World complex at Brooklands historic racing circuit near Byfleet, on its journey from Weybridge railway station to Woking railway station. In addition, the route is operated using specially branded Mercedes Benz single-decker buses, a fleet of three Citaros. Despite being 56 registered, the buses are only Euro 3-engined and have the old style fronts. The route used to run past Woking on to Guildford, on an indirect route via Send village, and also did not serve Weybridge, terminating at a retail centre near the circuit. Arriva later withdrew the Guildford to Woking section (replaced in part by Countryliner Coaches), and extended the route to Weybridge.

Liveries
Most service buses in the company are branded in the previously standard Arriva UK bus livery of aquamarine and cotswold stone. However, since Arriva changed its policy in 2009, making the previous "interurban" livery the standard, repaints have been going into this livery. Various Dennis Darts at Guildford wear orange branding for services to the University. As per Transport for London contract stipulations, the buses used on London Buses route 465 carried a red version of the Arriva livery, as used by Arriva London, although this route was given to Metrobus as part of the sale of Horsham depot. The Mercedes-Benz World buses are in the old style of Arriva livery but with light blue instead of cream, and silver in place of the aquamarine. The Guildford park and ride buses are painted in an oak leaf livery, matching the branding used by Surrey County Council, with buses painted in variety of different base colours: Lime green (spring), dark green (summer), blue (winter), brown (autumn) and pink (spare). In 2006, as was done in other Arriva locations, Arriva painted one its buses in a centenary livery reminiscent of Aldershot & District company. The bus has since gained standard livery. The Enviro200s wear interurban, all but one carrying branding for route 91 which is 4022.

Depots
Guildford is the location of the main bus garage of the company, although an outstation is maintained at Cranleigh.

Guildford
The fleet in Guildford is mainly low floor Dennis Dart/Plaxton Pointers. There are couple of examples with Pointer 2 bodywork. Making up the other main part of the fleet are DAF SB120/Wright Cadets. A batch arrived in 2001 for Surrey Hills routes, followed by another batch in 2002 for routes 34 and 35. 5 Volvo B7RLE/Wright Eclipse Urbans were bought in 2004 for Guildford park and ride services. Another newer VDL SB120/Wright Cadet arrived in 2006, (3970) diverted from an order for Arriva Yorkshire, to replace a 2002 example burnt out. Later that year 3 Mercedes-Benz Citaros arrived for route 436 to Mercedes-Benz World. In early 2009 a fleet of six Alexander Dennis Enviro200 Darts were put into service on route 91. In mid-2009, the final two Dennis Dominators with East Lancs bodywork at Guildford (part of the last batch ever built), were transferred to Maidstone, replaced by two Volvo B7TL/Alexander ALX400s, displaced from Gillingham. A Volvo Olympian/Northern Counties Palatine, which was Horsham's double decker, operated from Guildford for a while after Horsham's depot's sale, before moving on to Cranleigh as it is on the 43/45 School. Arriva's "Bus of the future" had operated from Guildford most of its life. New in 2002, it is a Volvo B7L/Wright Eclipse. However, in 2009 it moved to fellow Southern Counties garage Northfleet, before going to Arriva Shires & Essex.

Cranleigh
This depot's allocation again comprises mainly Dennis Dart SLF/Plaxton Pointers and DAF SB120/Wright Cadets. The two Surrey County Council owned Darts, 3591/2, are allocated here, but as with most vehicles, are frequently swapped with Guildford's vehicles.

Horsham
Before the sale, this depot operated more Dennis Dart SLF/Plaxton Pointers, six Alexander Dennis Enviro200 Darts and one DAF SB120/Wright Cadet for route 465, and a solitary Volvo Olympian/Northern Counties Palatine, which had only recently replaced a long serving Leyland Olympian/Alexander RL.