MTL (transport Company) - Lancashire Travel

Lancashire Travel

Between 1988 and 1993 Merseybus began expanding the network of services operated by its St Helens depot. At first these were to nearby Wigan but gradually a network of 'Merseybus' services began to appear in Bolton, Salford and Manchester. GM Buses was already under siege from a number of independent operators in Greater Manchester and the arrival of Merseybus/MTL in their established territory started a bus war between the two companies from 1993 to the summer of 1995. MTL launched a two-pronged attack on the Greater Manchester bus market. The first of which consisted of the creation of a new company, MTL Manchester, which had a depot in the Miles Platting area of Manchester and mainly focused on competing with GM Buses (North/South) on city corridors in Manchester and satellite towns such as Altrincham, Bury, Sale and Stockport.

The second phase of MTL's move into Greater Manchester was to rebrand the Merseybus services operated by the St Helens depot as Lancashire Travel in the Autumn of 1993. In turn Lancashire Travel expanded on to much of the GM Buses (North) network of both local and interurban services in Bolton, Wigan, Leigh, Salford and North Manchester. To facilitate this the 1989 batch of 25 MCW Metrobus MkIIs were transferred from Merseybus's Gillmoss depot to St Helens along with some early model MkI Metrobuses, again from Gillmoss and a variety of secondhand sources including London Buses, Mainline, Newport Transport and Yorkshire Rider. In addition MTL's first new vehicles, 13 Volvo B10B/Wright Endurances, were delivered to Lancashire Travel in the Spring of 1994. These moves provoked GM Buses (North/South) to begin new services in Liverpool, Southport and the Wirral, the latter using a light blue and cream livery - not dissimilar to that of Birkenhead Corporation - and were branded Birkenhead & District.

However the moves by MTL and GM Buses (North/South) into Greater Manchester and Merseyside were highly unprofitable and as such a controversial 'gentlemen's agreement' was signed between MTL and GM Buses North/South in June 1995, which saw MTL pull out of much of Greater Manchester - with the exception of Wigan and Leigh near to Lancashire Travel's St Helens depot and GM Buses North/South from all of Merseyside - including its well established 34 (Liverpool - Manchester Express) and 320 (Liverpool - Wigan) services which severed some important links between the two conurbations. This agreement was subject to a 1995/96 Monopolies & Mergers Commission study which found MTL, GM Buses North/South, North Western and other Merseyside bus operators in collusion and in breach of fair trade resulting in fines for all concerned. By that time GM Buses (South) had been acquired by Stagecoach Holdings plc and re-branded Stagecoach Manchester and GM Buses (North) by FirstBus plc (later FirstGroup plc). MTL maintained the Lancashire Travel branding for the St Helens depot however MTL North fleetnames were used by St Helens from the Spring of 1998 right up to the acquisition of MTL by Arriva in February 2000.