Formation
The protracted sale of Gillmoss did lead to poor staff morale, compounded by Arriva using Gillmoss as a dumping ground for the remaining ex-London Buses Leyland Titans that Merseybus/MTL had been acquiring since the end of 1992. Gillmoss did have a modern fleet of 25 Volvo Olympian/Northern Counties Palatine II that Liverbus and Merseybus/MTL North had bought new between them in 1995 and 1998 respectively and had been dubbed The Millennium Fleet. However GTL decided to not take up the leasing arrangements for these vehicles and remained with Arriva Merseyside who transferred them mostly to the Speke and Green Lane depots in Liverpool along with a handful for the Laird Street depot in Birkenhead. In return around 30 MCW Metrobuses which were more than 20 years old and had previously operated for Arriva Croydon & North Surrey and had been refurbished in 1999. MTL's cream and crimson livery was retained.
As a result of the Competition Commission's requirements Arriva couldn't compete with GTL's core route network in North Liverpool and Kirkby for three years and GTL decided to exploit this advantage: the next 18 months saw GTL rapidly expanding its route network throughout much of Merseyside. GTL promised investment in new vehicles for Gillmoss, however this never materialised. Instead further ex-London vehicles in the form of another large batch of Leyland Titans, along with Reeve Burgess/Plaxton Pointer-bodied Dennis Darts and a smaller batch of Metrobuses (some of which briefly operated in the liveries of their former owners) were acquired and at its peak GTL acquired a fleet of around 120 Titans and 60 Metrobuses. GTL's newest vehicles in 2000 were a batch of 11 Dennis Dart SLF/Marshall Capitals - which were the last batch of vehicles to be purchased new by MTL in 1999, and eight 1997 Dennis Dart SLF/East Lancs Sprytes acquired secondhand from Speke-based Express Travel in 2002. Furthermore these vehicles only usually operated Merseytravel contracts. A significant amount of the GTL fleet was approaching 25 years of age and as GTL charged higher fares than Arriva Merseyside and CMT Buses it gave GTL a more unfavourable impression in the eyes of Merseyside's bus users. In order to remain operating, GTL had to consolidate its position within Merseyside's bus market. The only remaining opportunity for GTL to do this was Aintree-based CMT Buses and it was perhaps unsurprising that GTL acquired CMT Buses.
Read more about this topic: Glenvale Transport
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