Buses in Milton Keynes
At the foundation of the 'New City' in 1967 and for some years afterwards, Milton Keynes was served by a rural bus service between and to the pre-existing towns.
Long-distance coach services also serve MK, often via the Milton Keynes Coachway located near junction 14 of the M1 motorway.
Urban services in Milton Keynes have been operated by several companies under a wide range of names since the city's creation in 1967.
A number of independent operators have begun providing services within the urban area where the Arriva network has contracted; principal among these are Aylesbury-based Red Rose Travel.
4 times a day Monday to Saturday the X91 which Stagecoach Midlands also runs provides a link to Towcester and then normally on to Silverstone to terminate and return to Milton Keynes.
[11] On 4 August 2014, the design and construction of the building was recognised by being Grade II listed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of English Heritage.
[11][12] The citation remarks "The design of the bus station with its projecting canopy, exposed steel girders and lightweight supporting steel columns, draws on influential buildings by the acclaimed modernist architect Mies van der Rohe, whose ideology inspired the new town plan and its buildings.
[11]Since 1997,[citation needed] the building ceased to be used for its original purpose and the bus interchange is now in front of the railway station.
New services were often poorly used in their early years as development in each area of the city built up over time, and such routes required significant subsidies.
To deal with the impracticality of a conventional staged bus service in the low-density new districts, Milton Keynes Development Corporation decided in 1973 to adopt and adapt the American Dial-a-ride concept, initially in Woughton Parish.
According to this system, users who needed transport could call a central dispatch office and have a nearby (radio-controlled) Mercedes-Benz mini-bus diverted to the caller's street.
Other brandings introduced in 1992 were County Line and Buckinghamshire Road Car; all were run with a mixture of full-size vehicles and minibuses.
An investigation by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) concluded that this had led to an unacceptable monopoly of bus operations in Cambridgeshire, Corby, East Northamptonshire, Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford and Mid Bedfordshire.
[26] Stagecoach was ordered to sell the Milton Keynes and Huntingdon operations to avoid the deal being referred to the Monopolies & Mergers Commission.
[29] It became part of his Status Bus & Coach mini-group – an attempt to co-ordinate the resources of small independents to save money – at its formation in 1999, but the group proved largely unsuccessful and had broken up by 2004.
[33] Some services were in fact improved in frequency as part of the rebranding but others were reduced or even eliminated, and some journey times were increased.
London-based R&I Tours began competing with Milton Keynes Citybus in 1992 using the trading name Inter MK.
They operated 10 single-deck buses, mostly Leyland Nationals in a two-tone blue livery, on a small number of routes in MK.
[37] In November 2009 a new competing route 44 between Central Milton Keynes and Lakes Estate was launched by coach company On A Mission.
[38] EasyBus, an intercity express coach operator founded by entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, ran a service between Milton Keynes and London between August 2004 and February 2006 using 19-seat Mercedes-Benz Vario mini-coaches.
[39] To keep costs down EasyBus originally used Hendon Central station in north London as its terminal point, with a journey time of 65 minutes and a single fare of £5.
[41] In 1999, Stagecoach commenced operating route VT99 from Milton Keynes Central to Luton railway station and Luton Airport under contract to Virgin Trains West Coast, with coaches in a dedicated livery to provide a connection for West Coast Main Line passengers to the airport.
[42] At the end of the contract and no longer carrying Virgin Trains branding, Stagecoach continued to operate the service as route 99 with vehicles in its own livery,[43] subsequently renumbering it as MK1.
