21 February 2012

A new sister for Citybus

Go-Ahead Group is pleased to announce the forthcoming acquisition of Carousel Buses Limited, based in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. The acquisition will take place on Saturday 3 March 2012.
Carousel currently operates around 50 buses in the Wycombe area and runs services to Heathrow Airport, Uxbridge, Chesham and Watford. The company mainly operates a mix of commercial bus services and schools bus contracts.


David Brown, Group Chief Executive said: "Carousel fits perfectly with our strategy of acquiring innovative, well-managed businesses which have a strong commercial core and can provide a solid basis for increasing passenger numbers. We are pleased to be taking on a bus company which prides itself on running a safe, reliable, affordable and customer focused service.
"In 2011 we acquired Thames Travel which was a similar size business and has been highly successful since joining the group, with significant tender wins. It has also successfully converted several services which were subsidised by local authorities into commercial services. Thames Travel has retained its own identity and prospers under our devolved business model. I am confident that we can repeat this success with the purchase of Carousel."
The current owners of Carousel, Steve Burns and John Robinson, will step back from day-to-day operation on acquisition, and will act as advisers to the new owners. Carousel will be run by the Oxford Bus Company director team under the leadership of Managing Director Philip Kirk.The company will retain its existing brand identity.


ENV19 RX60DMF CAROUSEL
Creative Commons licensed flickr photo shared by EastleighBusMan

Now what does that livery remind me of?

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      3 comments:

      1. Nick21 February 2012 at 10:23

        Well, at least they didn't sell out to the local incumbent Arriva. I used to travel on Carousel all the time when living in Bucks, and they always offered a cheaper, quicker, better service at weekends, and all on newer buses then the heaps Arriva operated. The only issues I ever had with them was that some of the Polish drivers would have an 'interesting' driving style, cumulating in the Dart that I was in one day going the wrong way around the roundabout in Chesham Town Centre! Was quite fun riding about on their super-rare to the UK Irisbus Agora Lines too, bringing a bit of Parisian flair to the streets of Wycombe. Of interest to PCB, Carousel picked up a load of B7TLs of the same batch from Ensign, so Go-Ahead could bring some of them down here for commonality purposes..

        P.S. The Carousel livery was also designed by the infamous shorts clad bearded bloke that did the new PCB one.

        ReplyDelete
      2. mike hudson PCTPG21 February 2012 at 21:18

        oi stop copying our exclusive livery! ahem. lol

        ReplyDelete
      3. didbygraham21 February 2012 at 22:15

        I think we copied them!

        ReplyDelete

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