Five new bus and coach routes: Part 1

Thursday 10th September 2026

I’ve been exploring five new routes introduced over the last couple of weeks – here’s the first of a three part blog taking a look at these new additions to the bus and coach scene.

Part one covers two new routes introduced in the North West which hit the road for the first time on Sunday.

I visited the area on Monday where Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram’s publicly controlled Metro branded franchised bus network was launched with the introduction of a large fleet of brand new buses together with a raft of changes to bus routes in the St Helens area where Stagecoach is the successful new franchised operator (taking over commercial routes previously operated by Arriva as well as tendered journeys under the old deregulated regime). The other area in this first tranche of franchising is on the Wirral, now run by Go North West.

However, I travelled over to St Helens by trying out TfGM’s Bee Network new bus route – the 612 between Wigan and St Helens taking an indirect route with an end to end journey time around 80 minutes via Newton-le-Willows and Earlstown and in so doing linking these two neighbouring Mayoral controlled regions.

It’s operated by Go North West and runs half hourly on Mondays to Saturdays with an hourly frequency in the evenings and all day on Sundays. The timetable impressively extends from 05:00 to 23:45.

Within Liverpool City Region jurisdiction the service has replaced former Arriva operated route 20 between Earlstown and St Helens but it’s a new addition creating new links at the Bee Network end of the route.

I caught the 12:00 departure from Wigan’s bus station where two other passengers boarded including one who was also exploring the route like myself. The other passenger alighted in Abram after a 25 minute journey.

We picked up a short rider when passing through Ince with another passenger joining at Newton-le-Willows station. We’d paused for three minutes to wait time in Golborne and again for two minutes in Newton-le-Willows. After that eight more passengers boarded as we passed through Haydock with two or three staying on board just for a short journey after which we arrived into St Helens’ temporary bus hub (while a new ‘interchange’ is being built) on time at 13:19 with six alighting.

Passing the five other buses on the route travelling towards Wigan three of these had just a handful of passengers on board but one, nearing Wigan had around a dozen and the other heading out of St Helens had almost a full seated load, reflecting the take over of the former route 20.

Long standing route 352 (now also operated by Stagecoach) running every 15 minutes provides a more direct route between Wigan and St Helens via Billinge taking 48 minutes and Monday morning saw some confusion in St Helens where passengers, seeing Wigan as the destination, were getting on the 612 rather than the 352.

The new arrangements have been widely promoted by Liverpool City Region through posters on the sides and rears of many Metro branded buses, of which I was impressed to see included the vast majority of operations in St Helens including many brand new buses.

Sadly though there’s a lack of printed timetables and the printed information that is available is woefully inadequate.

It was good to see two high-viz wearing Metro banded staff at the main departure bus stops in St Helens on Monday morning, kept busy answering questions, one of whom had a small supply of an A5 leaflet showing bus stop allocations and a list of routes with alterations which she was clearly embarrassed to give out – the contents comprising such ridiculously small print size it made it pretty much unreadable.

If you’re spending £millions taking over control of bus operations why skimp on one of the key things passengers need when changes are being made – printed information ? Yes, of course it’s “all on line” but that doesn’t help when you’re out and about trying to work out which bus to catch in a town centre. Smart phone screens just don’t cut it.

Over in the temporary Travel Centre, which with staff facilities, is in a series of Portacabins while the new bus interchange is being built…

… I did find an A4 version which was a bit more legible and enabled me to see that it was showing for each route that had changed in some way the route number, departure stand, operator (all showing Metro), the destinations and frequency by day of the week. All good stuff but not enough and out on the ground on Monday morning there was clearly a need for printed timetables – they’d have gone like hot cakes, more so than the mini packets of crisps being given out. So many conversations I overheard were all about new timetables and lots of puzzlement.

On the positive side there was an updated colour coded map for the network based on St Helens on display in bus shelters which was good to see.

Back in Wigan, TfGM had updated its departure displays to incorporate its new 612…

… except crucially there were no departures listed at the stand where buses leave and with no printed timetables it wasn’t a very impressive ‘launch’ for a new bus route comprising significant resources (six buses).

Something else very noticeable seeing both Bee Network and Metro branded buses side by side…

… in both Wigan and St Helens was just how insipid the former looks compared to the latter.

Back in St Helens I next caught the other new bus route launched this week – the Metro branded route X3 between St Helens and Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

Operated by Stagecoach with two smart looking interior furnished ‘76’ plate Enviro200 buses…

… this new daily service runs hourly between 04:00 and 01:00 providing a new faster limited stop link from St Helens via Clock Face and Bold Heath taking 47 minutes…

… compared to longer standing route 89 via Prescot and Huyton running every 20 minutes and taking 77 minutes.

As you can see from the map, the route is still fairly circuitous even though it skirts around the edge of Widnes, but these things are a compromise between serving a catchment area and providing a quick journey time. The span of day for the new timetable is impressive and the hourly frequency is the minimum required for a bus route serving an airport.

Hopefully if demand grows, the frequency can increase but first passengers have got to find out about it and once again I will come back to the same mantra – people won’t necessarily find it online – they also need other sources of information and promotional material. Two new buses and a significant roster of drivers for a seven days a week 21 hours service provision is costly. The additional cost of printing a promotional timetable leaflet that can be widely distributed on board buses is peanuts.

My journey on the 13:59 from St Helens on Monday afternoon carried two other passengers from St Helens to the Airport (one of whom was trying out the service like myself – the same guy who travelled with me on the 612) and a third travelled from St Helens to Clock Face (yes, that’s a place on the route, as well as a description of the frequency) but otherwise that was it. We passed the other bus with no-one on.

Sure, it was only the second day, but it’s going to need promoting.

Saturday’s blog will feature the third of the five new routes introduced this week – and this one’s an intriguing addition to the express coach market running just one return journey a day, on three days of the week.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS