Just two years ago Abellio Surrey ran an extensive network across north western Surrey, but following them giving up a number of council contracted routes in late 2016, the council awarded all of their remaining work to other operators from September 2017. This left the operator with just two commercial routes – a shortened 441 running between Staines and Englefield Green, and the 461 between Kingston and Addlestone (Monday to Saturday daytimes). There was initially competition on the 461 with Hallmark who had won the council tendered evening and Sunday service, but they gave up a few months later. Abellio Surrey withdrew from the 441 from Saturday 17th March this year with the expanding White Bus taking it on and, soon after, diverting it back to run via Pooley Green rather than The Causeway. Finally, Friday (14th September) saw the Abellio Surrey brand operate for the last time. Enviro 200 YX58 DTV (8107) had the honours on the 18:15 Addlestone to Kingston route 461 service, arriving 19:06.
Falcon Coaches took over operation of Abellio’s commercial Monday to Saturday 461 yesterday, with the council-tendered evening and Sunday service (which extends to/from St Peter’s Hospital and Chertsey respectively) continuing to be operated by Hallmark. The basic Abellio timetable continues unchanged, however two additional weekday journeys have been inserted, presumably to avoid running buses empty between the garage in New Haw and Kingston more than necessary. These are a 06:57 Weybridge to Kingston, and an 18:46 Kingston to Weybridge. You can view the timetable by clicking here.
The peak vehicle requirement (PVR) of the route appears to be five. Until now Falcon’s bus fleet consisted primarily of used 8.9m Enviro 200s, however five brand new vehicles have been delivered for what is branded a ‘Flagship’ service. The vehicles in question are the modern take on their older Enviros – 30 seater Enviro 200 MMCs. As I reported on Friday, the vehicles are registered YX68 UJP/R and YX68 ULP/R/S. The eagle-eyed among you will notice the latter three’s registration numbers lead onto the five similar vehicles that entered service with White Bus a fortnight ago – YX68 ULT/U/V/W/Y. In addition to the brand new vehicles, the new Flagship designation also introduces free Wi-Fi and next stop announcements. These extra features “will be fully operational in a few weeks”. The livery application on these vehicles also differs slightly, in that the red skirt and blue stripe swoop up at the rear. The rear of the bus advertises the new company website, phone number, mobile app and Flagship route features.
Passengers on the remaining routes haven’t been forgotten though. One additional feature they will receive is upgraded ticket machines which will allow contactless credit and debit card payment, as well as concessionary pass scanning and barcode readers for return/prepaid tickets. Contactless is planned to go live over the next three weeks, starting with the 461 by the end of next week, the 456 and 514/5 the following week, then finishing with the 73 and 564.
A mobile app will also be “rolled out by the end of next week” and will feature a journey planner, live bus tracker, and mobile ticketing for weekly and new ticket types.
I mentioned the new website a while back in a post about the company’s photographic competition. The branding on the new MMCs now tells us that the address will be www.falcon-buses.com, but at the time of writing it has not yet gone live.
Friend of the blog, Steve Foster was out capturing the new vehicles on his camera yesterday. As ever, my sincerest thanks to him for allowing me to share some of his photos with you below…
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