Arriva Southern Counties

Arriva Southern Counties is a bus operator in London, Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent and Essex in England. It is a division of Arriva.

History
The company was originally founded in 1986 when Einkorn Ltd. bought Maidstone & District (M&D) from the National Bus Company. In 1995, British Bus had ownership of M&D, Kentish Bus and Londonlinks services, and renamed Einkorn as Invictaway Ltd. to be the management services company for these routes. Invictaway was previously the name of the Maidstone & District commuter services to London, which were renamed Green Line at the same time. Upon the takeover of British Bus by Cowie Group and the subsequent renaming of Cowie to Arriva, the company was renamed Arriva Southern Counties in 1997, and the subsidary operating companies became as follows:

Maidstone & District:
 * Mainly became Arriva Kent & Sussex Ltd.
 * Medway area became Arriva Medway Towns Ltd.

Kentish Bus:
 * Mainly became Arriva Kent Thameside Ltd.
 * Partly became Arriva Kent & Sussex Ltd.

London & Country:
 * Became Guildford & West Surrey Ltd.

LondonLinks:
 * Became Croydon & North Surrey

Current operations in the Southern Counties area are:
 * Arriva Kent & Sussex
 * Arriva Kent Thameside
 * Arriva Medway Towns
 * Arriva Guildford & West Surrey
 * Arriva Maidstone
 * Arriva Southend

Many reorganisations of Arriva operations in the South East have followed since, and today the company also controls Arriva Guildford & West Surrey Ltd., Arriva West Sussex. and Arriva Southend Ltd. (and, for a time before sale, Arriva Colchester Ltd.). The Croydon & North Surrey subsidiary was largely transferred to Arriva London.

Arriva Colchester was sold in 2003 to Tellings-Golden Miller, although with Arriva's recent purchase of the Tellings operations, Colchester has now returned to the group. The coaching subsidiary, New Enterprise Coaches (Tonbridge) Ltd., inherited from Maidstone & District, remains in operation.

The company offices have been based since its founding at:
 * Invicta House
 * Armstrong Road
 * Maidstone
 * Kent
 * ME15 6TX.

Medway Towns upgrade
The Medway Towns network was upgraded in a £10 million investment marketed as Operation Overdrive.

Guildford Park and Ride
Arriva operates the Guildford park and ride for Surrey County Council. The buses are in the same style of livery, with oak tree leaves on the sides, but in different colours. There are currently 4 car parks, with a fifth under construction.

Maidstone Park and Ride
Arriva also operates Maidstone Park and Ride for Maidstone Borough Council. The buses are yellow with a green stripe swooping down from the top of the back of the bus to the bottom of the front. The fleet comprises two DAF SB120 (10.8m)/Wright Cadets and 9 DAF SB200 (11.8m)/Wright Commanders. In September 2007 the Coombe Quarry Park and Ride site (route 504) was closed due to apparent budget difficulties. As a result, some of the buses were absorbed into the main fleet. This leaves no Park and Ride service for South Maidstone for at least 4 years.

Fastrack


Arriva Southern Counties operate the Fastrack busway scheme in the Thames Gateway area of Kent on behalf of the Kent County Council. This network currently consists of two routes: Route A runs between Dartford and the Bluewater Shopping Centre, while Route B runs from Temple Hill near Dartford to Gravesend via Dartford. Since November 2007, Route B has connected with Eurostar at the new Ebbsfleet International railway station, and Eurostar passengers are allowed to use the route for free. On February 11, 2008, Arriva started a new "m-tickets" scheme, where passengers are able to pay for bus tickets using their mobile phones. Initially, this will only be available on Route B, but if successful could be extended to other Fastrack route and possibly even conventional Arriva routes.

Livery
The main Arriva livery is Aquamarine blue, with champagne cream and white separator line. There are many variations of the corporate livery. They are:

“Express” livery – Aquamarine, with dark blue band to skirt level. With the cream champagne “cow-horns” very much like Arriva London. Vehicles in this livery are:

Tunbridge Wells:  3912-6 (T912-6 KKM) - Route 402  1637-42 (GN57 BNX/Y/Z, BOF/H/J) - Route 281

London livery  The original London livery is red, with the champagne “cow-horns” and thin yellow line at skirt level. The Arriva “circles” logo is orange, not blue, as the corporate one.

New London livery  The Arriva London livery is completely red, with the thin yellow line at skirt level and the Arriva “circles” in plain white.  1624-32 (SN06 BPE/F/K/U/V/X/Y/Z/RF) ADL Dart (8.8m) MPD - Dartford  1643-9 (GN57 BPF/K/O/U/V/X/Y) ADL Enviro200Dart (8.9m) - Dartford  3261-72 (R261-72 EKO) Dennis Dart SLF (10.5m) / Plaxton Pointer 2 - Grays / Northfleet / Tunbridge Wells  3500-13 (KE51 PTY/Z/UA/F/J/K/O/U/V/X/Y/VA/D) DAF SB120 (9.4m) / Wrightbus Cadet - Grays  3971-3 (YE06 HPX/Y/Z) VDLbus SB120 (10.2m) / Wrightbus Cadet 2 - Grays  3976-81 (GN07 AVR/T/U/V/W/UY) ADL Enviro200Dart (10.2m) - Horsham  3982-96 (GN07 DLE/F/J/K/O/U/V/X/Y/Z/ME/F/O/U/V) ADL Enviro200Dart (10.7m) - Dartford  3997-99 (GN57 BOU/V/PE) ADL Enviro200Dart (10.2m) - Grays <Li> 4000-10 (GN08 CGC/U/V/X/Y/Z/HC/D/F/G/H) ADL Enviro200Dart (10.2m) - Grays

<BR>Bluwater Livery - No longer used <Li> Arriva’s Bluewater livery was allover blue, with a water effect, but the servces using this livery were replaced by Fastrack in 2006. Vehicles in this livery were: <Li> 3273-5 (T273-5 JKM)

Depots
The depots of Arriva Southern Counties are located at:
 * Cranleigh - Guildford & West Surrey
 * Dartford - Kent Thameside
 * Gatwick (Copthorne) - easyBus (New Enterprise Coaches)
 * Gillingham - Medway Towns
 * Grays - Grays
 * Guildford - Guildford & West Surrey
 * Horsham - Guildford & West Surrey
 * Maidstone - Maidstone / Kent & Sussex / New Enterprise Coaches
 * Northfleet - Kent Thameside
 * Sheerness - Medway Towns
 * Southend - Southend
 * Tenterden - Kent & Sussex
 * Tonbridge - New Enterprise Coaches
 * Royal Tunbridge Wells - Kent & Sussex

Fleet
There are over 700 vehicles in the Southern Counties fleet. Below, is a list of some of the most interesting vehicles, and sole survivors from previous fleets: <Li> 1450 (GX55 LNF) Optare Solo M920 (9.2m) - Horsham, is a hybrid bus. <Li> 1455 (YN53 ELU) Optare Solo M850 (8.5m) - Tunbridge Wells, for ESCC route 256. <Li> 3018 (M520 KPA) Dennis Lance SLF 11SDA / Wright Pathfinder 320 - Tunbridge Wells, the only remaining Lance SLF in the Southern Counties fleet, from London & Country. <Li> 3045 (F45 ENF) Leyland Lynx LX112L10ZR1R - Tunbridge Wells, the only remaining Lynx, as similar 3041/3/49/65 (E885/7 KYW, H256 YLG & G45 VME) have all been transferred to the training fleet. <Li> 3384 (M274 JPA) Dennis Lance SLF 11SDA / Wright Pathfinder 320 - Tunbridge Wells, the only remaining Lance SLF in the Southern Counties fleet, from Southend Transport. 3379 suffered severe fire damage. <Li> 3730 (LF02 PVA) Volvo B7L / Wrightbus Eclipse - Guildford, ex-Arriva "Bus of the Future"


 * Double-deck, low-floor


 * Double-deck, step-entry


 * Single-deck, low-floor


 * Single-deck, step-entry


 * Midibuses/ Low-floor


 * Midibuses, Front-engined


 * Coaches