Arriva quits the A41

Tuesday 25th March 2025

Many inter-urban bus routes have seen booming passenger demand in recent years as bus companies invest in new vehicles, improved frequencies and attractive branding to encourage growth along key corridors.

But on the border of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire it’s a different story. Specifically the Aylesbury to Hemel Hempstead corridor along what used to be the A41 until that road number was hijacked to denote a new by pass for Aston Clinton, Tring and Berkhamsted in the early 1990s.

In London Transport Country Bus days the corridor was so important it hosted the prestigious numbered route 301 with buses continuing south from Hemel Hempstead via Apsley and Kings Langley to Watford making for a significant and popular inter-urban bus route, albeit buses didn’t actually call into Hemel Hempstead town centre for many years, keeping instead to the A41 between the railway station and the bus garage at Two Waters.

This same busy corridor also saw London Transport’s long established Green Line 706/707 run in parallel with the 301 from Aylesbury to Watford continuing into central London and on to Westerham/Oxted in Kent.

The 707 was an early casualty in the 1970s and the 706 didn’t survive the cull of Green Line routes in the 1980/1990s, and once Arriva arrived on the scene, having acquired the former London Country North West company via various takeovers and renamings, I gained the impression it struggled to make the route viable.

Initiatives over the years included renumbering the route to 500, splitting the route in Hemel Hempstead, reducing frequencies and only last year, renumbering the route again to X5 as part of a wider scheme for its inter-urban routes based on Aylesbury.

Whenever I’ve travelled on the route I’ve been unimpressed by the poor quality of vehicles with inconsistent branding and poor presentation and cleanliness.

So I wasn’t altogether surprised to hear Arriva has given notice to quit the half hourly route completely from 17th May.

This drastic action has presumably been precipitated by rival company Red Eagle registering a competitive service numbered 500 beginning on 14th April running half hourly in the peaks and hour off peak between Aylesbury and Hemel Hempstead but, I understand, omitting Aston Clinton by running fast from Aylesbury along the A41 to Tring, and then via the traditional route through Northchurch and Berkhamsted to Hemel Hempstead.

It seems on seeing this competitive move from one of the many “Red” bus companies based in this area (which have been slowly and steadily expanding their presence over the years), Arriva just threw in the towel.

I understand Red Eagle are now giving urgent consideration to modifying its registration to maintain a service for Aston Clinton, although the village does have Red Eagle’s half hourly routes 61/62 into Aylesbury (and Tring) but not Berkhamsted and Hemel, and presumably upping the frequency to half-hourly during the off-peak once Arriva quits.

I took a ride on Arriva’s soon to be dropped X5 last Friday morning to see what the company is throwing away.

I caught the 10:23 from outside Hemel Hempstead railway station which arrived a few minutes late to pick up four of us waiting and joining the 12 already on board from the town centre.

It’s a route in four sections. Hemel Hempstead to Berkhamsted (the next biggest town especially when combined with neighbouring Northchurch), then to Tring, then to Aston Clinton and finally to Aylesbury.

We carried 32 passengers in total.

Half of these boarded in Hemel with nine travelling to Berkhamsted, three to Tring and four all the way to Aylesbury.

Seven boarded in Berkhamsted/Northchurch with three just riding locally and four to Tring.

Eight boarded in Tring with one travelling locally, one to Aston Clinton and six to Aylesbury and finally one boarded in Aston Clinton for Aylesbury.

Aside from any school children in the afternoon I reckon that’s probably typical for off-peak loadings and travel patterns. Observing the other four buses out on the route which passed by heading towards Hemel Hempstead on Friday, they each looked to have similar occupancy.

I’d expect the route to be much busier at peak times especially with scholars and passengers travelling to and from work in both Hemel Hempstead and Aylesbury as well as using connections at the railway stations in those towns and in Berkhamsted.

My impression is Arriva let the route go without the care and attention it needed, opening the door for an enterprising and expansionist company to come in and run a better service.

It’s a profitable corridor and is another example of Arriva giving up on operations which others subsequently find it easy to make a success of – Crawley (Metrobus), Greenock (McGills) and Burton-on-Trent (Midland Classic/Diamond Bus) being the classics of the genre.

Yet not far away from Aylesbury it’s been pleasing to see Arriva launch new commercial initiatives such as the X1 between Milton Keynes and Luton last July and, earlier this year, the new Loop in Milton Keynes itself. I would have thought the X5 was a more certain commercial proposition than the latter.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

58 thoughts on “Arriva quits the A41”

  1. Red Eagle registered their 500 route before Arriva announced cancellation of the X5. Indeed, a timetable variation (to improve reliability) for the X5 will still go ahead on the 20th April – 6 days after Red Eagle start – before withdrawal, resulting in the brief situation of two operators competing on the corridor!

    Sometimes coincidences do happen….

    Dan Tancock

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  2. When I bought Weekender tickets (1967-1969), I generally used to ride the Underground and Central Buses. However, on one occasion I did an extraordinary long-distance jaunt well outside the current Greater London boundary: Amersham to Aylesbury on a Route 359 (probably an RT) then Green Line Route 706 back into central London. I suppose I got to Amersham by Underground. The 706 was probably an RF operation with my only other memories of Hemel Hempstead Bus Station as being a passenger on Route 708 which was either RMC or RCL. In my recent ENCTS era I have got to Aylesbury and Hemel Hempstead on separate tours. As I was a schoolboy all those years ago, most of my ticket use was attenuated by time. I was probably expected to be home at a sensible time, say 1800, or at least before nightfall. I was a keen “Dr Who?” fan so needed to take in broadcasting schedules on a Saturday as well as London Transport timetables and maps.

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  3. Most of Arriva of what they loosely call Southern Counties is struggling

    Colchester is giving up the Stansted service and I think they will putt out of Colchester when the Rapid transport service starts up. I suspect that a lot of the HCC contract work will go to other operators when they come up for retender, They have already lost the ECC contract work

    Simonds/Central Connect are expanding rapidly in the East of England. They have picked up some of the Norwich P&R Service Service 18 in Ipswich, HL1 in Herts, The Stansted service from Arriva and dome service in the Bishops Stortford area from First Bus. They are also working with Flix bus, The first service starting in April in the Leicester area

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    1. They have completely destroyed the once excellent Southend Transport by their greed and incompetence. Most bus users in Southend want them to pull out, or better still be kicked out, and for someone decent to take over. Passenger numbers have dropped significantly on many routes and traffic congestion is just getting worse and worse as people have no trust or confidence in the bus service. The council don’t seem to care either.

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  4. I wanted to use X5 from Hemel to Berkhamsted on Wed 19th March, two in a row arrived at Hemel and went off out of service rather than return to Aylesbury. I had to walk to the station and get a train. Arriva seem incapable of running an efficient interurban service compared to Stagecoach and GoAhead.

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  6. This sounds to me like Arriva have taken quick advantage of Red Eagle serving the route (mostly) by “getting the hell out of Dodge” and leaving them to it, without the headache of announcing withdrawal with no alternative in place.

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  7. They’ve also changed the timetable of three routes in the Hemel/Watford area to every 20 mins school days and every 30 mins non school days, which seems designed to confuse passengers. In the Watford observer they cited lower traffic levels on non school days and the fact their drivers want time off for family reasons during the holidays.

    Meanwhile up the road not only have Carousel added the Chesham contracts, but they’ve also gained a bunch of shoppers services from Oxfordshire. Everything is on their timetable page now, and hopefully it won’t be long before we get a new version of their lovely network map.

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  8. Just a few journeys over the last few years on the X5 have not impressed. With the service now operated solely out of Hemel I would have thought easier to control, and the only real daytime traffic congestion spot is trying to navigate Berkhamstead. The rest of the route lends itself to fast open-road running, and with many workings double-deck, it is quite an enjoyable experience.

    Yet vehicles, even at thirty minute headways seem to bunch, and I somehow always encounter gaps of almost an hour. A small diversion in Tring some months ago whilst the high street was being “relaid” somehow threw the service into more chaos than usual, yet other operators seemed to cope.

    As remarked upon by other Commentators, Arriva simply throw in the towel now at the mere hint of competition, which leads my suspicious mind to wonder if there is some secret agenda at work behind the scenes.

    Terence Uden

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    1. Until recently Hemel had a full load but in recent months they have been cutting back the services

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    2. Secret agenda by who, terence?

      The only thing happening with Arriva here is incompetence and spreadsheet-led cost cutting, although I guess that doesn’t fit with the doublethink.

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      1. Can you be sure about that? Any company which can roll over in the way Arriva has continually (it started with Crawley many years ago…and just look at that now under Metrobus), leads me to wonder if they, or at least those who work under them……Only thinking aloud.

        Terence Uden

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  9. Konect Bus Reorganisation

    The Hedingham and Chambers trading names are being phased out and being replaced by Konect Essec and Suffolk and Konect Norfolk. A somewhat strange split as the Essex operation is by far the largest, Chambers and Konect being quite small

    They are changing to a blue livery as well so that another cost. It may be a final attempt to turn these loss making business around

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    1. Hedingham and Chambers have long been one operation running with two names.

      I assume that GoBackwards (as they are known in the railway industry) have decided that the Hedingham and Chambers names are damaged whereas Konect simply isn’t known to folk outside Norfolk so isn’t an issue in that way.

      Or some kid has decided that he doesn’t like old fashioned names and that Konect sounds “kool”.

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    2. Seems like a complete waste of money repainting all these buses and rebranding the route.

      People do not care for the stupid methods that the word Connect has been butchered into, I mean, even Aberdeen Investments are now just called Aberdeen rather than abrdn, it just shows what a waste of money and time that could have been better served upon improving the service.

      People care for frequency, reliability, good service and buses to cater from early to late, not what the colour of the bus is painted in or what brand name some wonk in marketing has created after a good night out.

      That’s how you’ll get ridership. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a passenger go “I’ll ride the Konect bus”, more the number of it or just got on as it needs to take them to where they have to get to.

      -Chris

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  10. One correction: the 706 went to Westerham, not Wrotham. (The lattercwas served by the 703, then the 717). Interesting article, thanks.)

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  11. At times you do wonder about Arriva they dumped most of Staffordshire to Chaserider; albeit one of the worst & most useless bus operators in the Midlands whilst charged thru The Black Country only to sell out to Rotala yet they hang onto Tamworth & run on the overbussed Brum to Sutton lines with a 20min frequency though I rarely see anyone on the 110 oddly.Whether or not they think Tamworth is strgetically placed for TfWM remains to be seen. The only thing I ever see Arriva are any good at are Chiltern Railways & that will be reaching the terminus soon.

    As an aside the continued retrenchment of the once mighty 144 of First Midland Red Buses Limited marches on in terminal decline with yet another frequency cut next month to half hourly from Catshill to Worcester.

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    1. As a regular user and observer of the 65 from Tamworth to Nuneaton, the exterior and interior presentation of the regular Tamworth vehicles is poor. There’s quite a contrast with those from Hinckley (Barwell) depot which usually have a much higher standard of presentation.

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      1. That is very interesting Keith I have to say also that using the 110 regularly its a very mixed bunch allocated to this route.

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      2. Perhaps the mindset of Hinckleybus still lives on? What a wonderful operation that was, with fantastic publicity material. Chalk and cheese.

        Andrew Saffrey.

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    2. I rarely see anyone on the 110 oddly

      I’ve only used it a few times in the past couple of years and on those occasions it’s seemed to load reasonably well within the West Midlands – although that is “reasonably well” by current standards – and it does seem to carry more between WM and Tamworth than my memory says it did historically, perhaps because Tamworth is slowly becoming a dormitory suburb of the Birmingham area.

      The loadings I’ve seen are probably helped by the long-time West Midlands tendency of concessionary passholders (in particular) to just get on any bus that comes along; there’s never really been a huge amount of brand loyalty in the area, although some developed post-deregulation back in the 1980s and of course the PTE/WMT Travelcard forced a degree of loyalty-through-validity back then. I still think it’s a pity that WMPTE passed the Travelcard to WMT back in ’86 rather than keeping it as an all operator pass.

      The 110 does provide some links in the Whitehouse Common area which NXWM don’t and it’s handy for Good Hope hospital, alternating with NXWM’s X4 to give a customer-friendly overall 7/8 minute headway there.

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      1. Fascinating I used the 110 from Corporation Street this morning with precisely three of us on it with just me on it on the return.

        Using it weekly I quite never see the service carry any loads you suggest and the nBus factor doesn’t seem to have made a difference.

        Within the TfWM franchising document it clearly states from the statistics given that the X3 X4 X5 110 corridor is overbussed and will be reduced in the new era.

        Unless Arriva win the North Birmingham tranch they will need a special permit to operate into the West Midlands County.

        TfWM franchising on the horizon is the only possible reason I can see for the 110 surviving along with Arriva Midlands. Post Covid-19 the 110 is an oddity that continues given the WMCA have just approved another £22m for Bus Network Support Grant for about 30% of the bus network in West Midlands County that is currently unsustainable outside of the Brum City Network.

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  12. I’m struggling to understand the business model of Arriva “Southern Counties”. Everything seems to be in the “too difficult” pile now. Fleet renewal seems to have ceased altogether, apart from in Medway.

    Hemel Hempstead was a trial area (in 2018) for minibuses, which were used to replace odd trips with 16 seaters without frequency increases, which not surprisingly didn’t work. The general fleet is now anything from 7-8 years old to 17 years old . . . some buses were transferred from Guildford after that was ceded to Stagecoach (following disasterous competition with Safeguard), and some still have remnants of branding for Routes 34/35 to Camberley. They have a handful of deckers at HH which are kept on town service . . . which are now being reduced to 2 BPH all day . . . I reckon the “town” PVR will be in single figures . . . for a “New Town” with a population of just under 100,000, that’s truly appalling.

    ASC seem to simply walk away . . . reference Crawley; Guildford; Aylesbury; Wycombe . . . I was in Southend last week, and their fleet looks very tired in comparison with First’s offering. I believe that Colchester’s PVR is now barely in the mid-20s. ASC walked away from electric buses in Stevenage, and from Fastrack in Kent Thameside as well . . . in the case of Stevenage the contract was (almost) signed!

    I see X5 buses occasionally; loadings seem to be in the teens at the Hemel end, so Roger’s snapshop looks to be a decent number. Frankly, 32 passengers on a through journey is pretty good for a daytime trip of about an hours length . . . I’ve heard ancedotal evidence of some trips loading to above 50 passengers . . . so if passenger numbers are “insufficient”, what would be “sufficient”?

    And, in 50 years, I’ve never heard of a whole daytime frequency being reduced by 50% in school holidays “so drivers can have more time with their families”!! Surely promoting the 3 BPH in school holidays would be better; “days out with kids” and so on . . . back in the too difficult pile, I guess.

    As a resident of SW Herts . . . I look longingly at High Wycombe . . . in less than 12 months Carousel have revitalised bus services in the area; have tried very hard to undo years of Arriva’ lacadasical attitude; and seem to be making a fair fist of it. I daresay there may be a few setbacks along the way, but at least they are trying. Perhaps Carousel might care to look across the border into Hertfordshire? Please . . .

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    1. I was also surprised at the “staff want time off in the school holidays ” excuse! The world doesn’t stop when the schools are shut, people still have lives and travel needs. My local operator Faresaver always runs a kids (accompanied) go free promotion every school holiday and publicise it on their Facebook page.

      Also, it is sad that former municipals get destroyed by the big groups. Southend by Arriva, Northampton by First.

      Peter Brown

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    2. I’m struggling to understand the business model of Arriva

      Do they actually have one? Nationally, let alone for the “Southern Counties” operation.

      Arriva have always seem to me to just be bumbling along, without the accountancy-led baby-with-the-bathwater cutting that has characterised First Group over the years but also with little or no corporate interest in doing anything much at all.

      The occasional spark of innovation by individual local managers is always just that: an occasional spark which soon dies out, apparently smothered by corporate inertia.

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  13. Hulleys of Baslow is confirmed as insolvent and will cease trading at close of business tomorrow, Wednesday 26th March 2025, although there is nothing at all about it on their Facebook page or website, or indeed on the Derbyshire County Council website public transport news pages.

    This notice has been posted to Peak Travel Watch’s Facebook page and would appear to be the official notice issued to Hulleys staff.

    This link is the Route One report.

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    1. Really ? I doubt normal passengers give a single care in Brum & The Black Country whose bus it is as Especially given there are currently five different liveries of NXWM on the streets from Red & White Connectors to Crimson to Platnum to West Midlands Bus Red to the currently coal nuners grey as A Nomy Mouse refereed to previously.

      This on top of the Brighter Diamond livery & whites of Carolean & Kevs.

      In fact the 3 from West Bromwich to Merry Hill operated by WB & PN & Carolean basically on a similar route in part to Diamond 24/H typifies that passengers will get on anything that comes on that corridor from full size Scanias to Merc Sprinters in a rainbow of liveries.

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  14. Passengers do care about the name and colour of the bus. They welcomed Safeguard and the well presented red and cream livery when the bus war in Guildford broke out.

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    1. Partly helped by the fact Arriva had started using minibuses to Bellfields that filled up and left people behind, where as Safeguard ran proper buses that passengers could actually board and travel on.

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  15. The decline of Arriva has been readily apparent for several years albeit it accelerated after it was purchased by Deutsche Bahn. Operations were starved of investment – initiatives such as Sapphire were introduced. Quickly they were compromised as a quality product was then extended using middle aged refurbished kit and, god forbid, Wright Streetlites with the ride quality akin to tobogganing on tea tray. Instead, we’ve seen local managers seeing business investment cases falter when requiring capital and having to realise higher margins with older fleet.

    It’s little wonder that the Red empire saw the opportunity to go into Aylesbury and managed to oust Arriva from a marginal piece of territory. However, such is the decline that even what were fairly robust parts of the empire are reduced to meagre rations struggling by with ageing fleet, such as Arriva Yorkshire. Who’d have imagined that Arriva North East would simply walk away from much of its Newcastle based operations, plus various other retrenchments? At least they were able to sell Cannock to Julian Peddle and avoid the exit costs – in many other areas, they’ve had to absorb the write downs and redundancy costs in Cheshire, Shropshire, Guildford, etc.

    Sadly, Arriva Southern Counties is perhaps the sickest of all the children. I suspect that the X5 hasn’t gone because its loss making but more that it is somewhat on a limb into enemy territory and that if a service is to be sacrificed as funds for fleet replacement remain scarce, that is the easiest cut to make? However, it won’t be the last and I agree with GL712 (above) that I’d be worried in some other corners of ASC.

    BW2

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    1. I doubt Arriva will leave Newcastle and the North East. There Headquarters are based in Darlington. Yorkshire and Leicester maybe. As there getting a lot of stick about ticket prices for the last three years they have risen.

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      1. Arriva’s HQ is at Doxford in Sunderland, NOT Darlington. My point was that Arriva has already walked away from a number of its Newcastle based operations (services 51-55, 334 and the 685) and closed its Jesmond depot which was the largest depot at Arriva’s creation.

        BW2

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      2. Their Headquarters are based in Darlington.

        Their headquarters are an office in a business park in Doxford (near Sunderland) not Darlington. It’s a place that Arriva don’t even run to.

        The office location is no reason for them to keep running buses in the region and that office could be moved at a whim.

        As they’re getting a lot of stick about ticket prices for the last three years they have risen.

        In that respect they’re no different to any other bus company. All bus companies have put their fares up over that time, and all bus companies have been given stick for it.

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  16. Arriva under its new Miam owners seem to be cutting a lot. One suspects Arriva will concentrate on few areas as possible like London/Leicester/Merseyside and the North East. They have left Manchester already. Yorkshire maybe next.

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    1. The decision to exit Manchester was made under the previous DB ownership, as was the close down of Guildford, Wycombe/Aylesbury, Oswestry, Winsford.

      If I was looking at places they may exit next, I wouldn’t be looking at Yorkshire.

      BW2

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  17. The Green Line routes went earlier than you think, the 707 was withdrawn in February 1969 and the 706 when Tring closed at the start of April 1977 – the 708 was extended to Aylesbury.

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  18. I used to drive the 706 on rare occasions whilst at Chelsham back in 70’s.What price the 725 will be on their hit list in the future.

    So frequent the A41 services were from Hemel and Tring with Chelsham chipping in those days.

    The Wandering Busman.

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  19. And more Diamond news from Staffordshire where they have had a school service 828 cancelled for persistent unreliability.

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    1. As for Diamond Bus School Services in Staffordshire these are outside the West Midlands County however the companies 829 is withdrawn in Staffordshire from 11th April 2025 while the 828 continues in Wolverley on the Staffordshire border.

      Any decision on school services are a matter for the local authorities in question & not the bus company if funded by a local authority.

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  20. Hemel Hempstead garage has always had a poor reputation for service reliability and poor vehicle image going back to London Country days. The issue with the through 500 service was traffic congestion in Watford and Aylesbury. Pre covid if Watford FC were playing at home and it was near Christmas it could regularly take an hour to get into Watford from Hunton Bridge which played havoc with the timetable. Staff shortages and vehicle availability also reduced the reliability of the service. Recently extensive roadworks on the approaches to Aylesbury in conjunction with new house building have also caused delays. The split designed to improve reliability was not favoured as many passengers from Berkhamsted area went to Watford for work and shopping. Due to the total unreliability of the connections, passengers have found alternatives notably the train. Another issue is that no one really wants to go to just Hemel Hempstead for shopping. The town centre in Hemel Hempstead has declined noticeably and is essentially full of pound shops. W H Smith closed taking the main post office and there are significant rumours that M&S is pulling out to a site on the industrial estate and the former Debenhams shop still remains empty.  Since the split the service has suffered from many cancellations notably when Aylesbury depot was winding down and since its transfer to Hemel Hempstead. It is common for two or three buses in succession to be cancelled leaving long gaps in service. Since Red Eagle introduced the half hourly service on 61/62 services between Aylesbury and Tring can have done nothing to improve the performance of the X5. The X5 service is busy with many journeys in peak hours being full and standing especially if single deckers are used. There is good trade on the route and always has been, the poorest section of route being between Northchurch and Tring. This appears to be another case of Arriva just withering away. It’s a shame Arriva don’t pull out of Hemel and give it to Go Ahead as in High Wycombe. Just prior to deregulation HH had a runout of 44 buses excluding Green Line coaches of which circa 18 were for town services.  

    On the Arriva Herts and Essex facebook page an advert has appeared today extolling the virtues of visiting Cassiobury Park in Watford. It advertises services 500 and 320 to get there. 500 hasn’t run since Jan 2024, 322 being the new route and the 320 was withdrawn except for two journeys in favour of route 20.

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    1. The town centre in Hemel Hempstead has declined noticeably and is essentially full of pound shops.

      This is a serious issue for bus operators across the UK; many small-town shopping areas are nowadays little more than a strip of pound shops, charity shops, coffee shops, phone repair shops and vape shops, with a sprinkling of those national retailers who either sell what is basically higher-priced pound-shop stuff (Flying Tiger and Sostrene Grene, for example) and those clothes chains which like a High Street presence. And lots of vacant premises.

      What is there to entice people into those town centres?

      Without an ‘offer’ to bring people into town, bus operators are going to struggle. With the ongoing preference to concentrate medical and higher educational facilities on larger out-of-town campuses, those users are also no longer heading into the town centres, with the added issue that their journeys are now spread out and more difficult to serve by bus. Along with the closure of so many town centre offices, it all means fewer passengers for the bus companies.

      Add much higher car ownership than say 25 years ago outside the conurbations (I estimate there are three times as many cars on the streets of my city than at the turn of the century), with both the related parking issues and people choosing to use their cars for optional travel rather than buses, and I think we’re going to be seeing much more retrenchment. Which is sad.

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      1. Some good points here, town centres have changed for good. People shop online, or go to edge of town retail parks. Town centres need to adapt to offering venues for socialising (restaurants, bars, cafes etc), things you can’t get online. Also councils are realising that town centre living is a good thing, increased footfall supporting convenience stores and the hospitality venues just mentioned.

        So there are opportunities for bus operators to counter the decline of the traditional high Street. The town centre residents in new apartments may not have a car, will need transport to medical, higher education, railway stations, edge of town retail, business parks and industrial estates.

        Peter Brown

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    1. a facebook group has been formed … to try and save the X5.

      Plenty of people are willing to wibble on social media about services they claim are utterly essential – but if even half of them actually used those buses then the services would be profitable and wouldn’t be being withdrawn in the first place.

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  22. Konectbus Unveils Exciting Rebrand and Network Improvements Across East Anglia

    The service changes are down to First Bus and Simonds having won the P&R contract. It left Konect with a lot of surplus capacity

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  25. Fewer services. Garages uneconomical. Close down the garages. Sell off and make a lot of money! Asset stripping is probably more profitable for the foreign owners than investing time and money in OUR transport. The buses are not cared for either. In the past week I have seen three broken down Arriva buses, two already on tow to be patched up!

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  26. The respondents post on 25/3/25 at 08.54 accurately sums up the recent history of the 301/501/500/X5. For most of it’s time the service was partially or entirely operated by Hemel Hempstead Garage, Aylesbury only getting to operate it with Hemel after London Country North West was acquired by Luton and District.

    Aylesbury not gaining total operation of the route until it was split, becoming Aylesbury – Hemel only. With the closure of Aylesbury the route once again became an entirely Hemel operation.

    The reliability in the past even in NBC days when operated by Hemel could be very bad, I know of one person who left Aylesbury at 8am finally getting to Hemel at midday! Successive vehicles all breaking down! Recently I myself have observed 2 X5’s coming along 5 minutes apart on a half hourly frequency a couple of times recently, with the first returning not long after sporting not in service!

    One wonders how reliable the immediate post deregulation, then renumbered 501 was. It run from Aylesbury to Watford onto Harrow!

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    1. Post deregulation reliability? Terrible!! To be fair, this was whilst the A41 bypass was being built between Kings Langley (M25) and Tring. Our route 501 was cut back from Harrow to Watford, and then split in Hemel Hempstead to try to localise the delays. There never was very much “carry-over” passenger traffic between the two halves, so this didn’t matter too much.

      I have to say that service control by Arriva Hemel Hempstead has long been appalling . . . the only measurement metric seems to be “run the mileage”. I’ve seen, back in around 2010, two consecutive Route 320 buses (every 30 minutes) running five minutes apart. It was a three hour rounder at that time . . . sure enough, three hours later, the same two buses were still running 5 minutes apart!!

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  28. Arriva gave up in Guildford similarly 2 years ago. Top management came from London and told the local manager they were closing. They spent 7 minutes on site, refusing to field any questions, and we’re gone!

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