West Midlands Hagley Road bus corridor

The Hagley Road bus corridor is a collection of routes in the West Midlands, England. Services 9, 99 and 138 are operated by National Express West Midlands and service 192 is operated by Central Connect

History

The 138 and 99 were both part of the 109/139 corridor, with alterations.

The route originally formed part of Midland Red's Service 130/132/133/137/138/192 network operating between Birmingham and Stourbridge, Kidderminster and Brierley Hill. Service 9 was originally Birmingham City Transport's City Centre-Quinton service, extended to Halesowen and Stourbridge by West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive in 1983 to replace Service 130. Midland Red Services 132/133 were replaced by limited stop Services X92/X93 in 1972, which were subsequently extended to serve Hereford and Worcester during the early 1980s.

Changes between 109/139 and 99/138

  • Colley Gate is no longer served.
  • Mucklow Hill is no longer served in the daytime (daytime services serve Spies Lane, 636 serves Mucklow Hill during the daytime)
  • 139E is re-numbered 138 and extended to Russels Hall Hospital after 18:00 hrs.
  • The early morning Saturday journey is no longer operated by Pensnett Depot, now it is operated by Birmingham Central Depot with Centro Support.
  • The timetable was revised
  • Hasbury peak variant Service 19 was withdrawn.

(Service 139 was then renumbered 99 from May 31st 2009 and no longer served Five Ways, insteading going over this junction)

Changes on service 9

This route used to experience major competition from Diamond Bus. Competition was very intense between both National Express West Midlands and Diamond Bus, however over the past 2 years, Diamond has withdrawn operations on this route slowly withdrawing services 9, 9A, 9B and 9N although they have re-commenced this service via their Ludlows VOSA Licence using Diamond branded buses.

On 22 June 2008, Travel Express also withdrew all operations on service 9.

Present

Services 9, 99 and 138 all currently serve Birmingham, Five Ways, Bearwood, Quinton and Halesowen. From here, service 9 goes off to Lye and Stourbridge whilst services 138 and 99 go to Cradley Heathand then Merry Hill. However, service 138 continues after Merry Hill Centre towards Russells Hall Hospital. National Express West Midlands service 9 runs every 10 minutes daytime Monday - Saturday, every 15 minutes evenings and 20 minutes Sunday. Service 99 runs in the weekday daytime every 15 minutes, with service 138 taking over in the evenings running every 30 minutes and on Sundays every 20 minutes.

The services are usually run by a mixture of Optare Spectra, Volvo B7TL Plaxton President or Dennis Trident 2's. Both services used to have Plaxton Presidents route branded 'Hagley Road' (named after the major corridor it served), however these have since been de-branded and painted into the National Express West Midlands livery.

Future

By the end of June, it is known NXWM are intending the routes to be operating using Enviro400 Double Deck buses. These buses will also be branded for the Hagley Road.