Arriva North West - Speke Depot (Old Closed Thread)

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RE: Arriva North West - Speke Depot

(13/08/2020 21:43)Liamkennedy2231 Wrote:  Having a little nose round in the Arriva app, I’ve noticed they’ve now added the new routes into the Journey Planner. And there’s a few points I can now clear up on about the new 500.

Firstly this will in fact be an express service taking just 28 minutes from the Airport to get to Liverpool One. It’s also interesting to note that both inward and outward journeys are considered as one journey, with a two minute break at Liverpool One.

The journey to Liverpool One sees stops at Leeward Drive, Windward Drive, New Mersey (Speke Retail), Whitehedge Road and then all stops after the turn onto Jericho Lane, so all stops in the Otterspool and Brunswick areas (including Brunswick station) will not be left out.

The return journey will briefly follow the 82 route, taking in stops at Great Charlotte Street, Brownlow Hill, Benson Str is eet, Bold Place, Upper Duke Street, down Parliament Street then via the reverse of the above route. The return journey also sees additional stops at Lisburn Road and Milner Road in Aigburth which are not observed going towards the City Centre.

This time around the 500 will not be serving Liverpool South Parkway, seemingly a time-saving move so it does in fact seem more express. This isn’t much of a blow, though, as people can use the existing 80A and 86A which still get to South Parkway in relative quickness.

In terms of timetabling, the service will continue to be half-hourly from start to finish. The first bus of the day leaves the Airport at 03:59 and then at 29 and 59 minutes past each hour until the last bus at 23:59, so not quite 24 hours unfortunately. The first bus from Liverpool One to the Airport is at 04:29 then at 59 and 29 minutes past each hour until 00:29. The buses being at Speke now allows these extra journeys, which is great.

What I now wonder is if they’re going to repaint some of the double deck fleet to differentiate the route from the rest, like they did last time. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Apologies for sounding like a journalist but I hope this is of help to some of you guys :P

This isn’t a time saving move as it now takes 40 minutes from L1 to JLA instead of 33 on the current 500. One has to wonder what goes on in Aintree. Reversing the decision about the 500 and putting the express bus back on in the current climate seem a bit outrageous.