MTL (transport Company) - MerseyRider

MerseyRider

MerseyRider began life in the Autumn of 1992 as a low-cost operation set up by Merseybus a few months prior to the sale to privatisation. MerseyRider operated on lower margins and what would prove controversial pay-rates than Merseybus and initially operated out of Liverline's former Blackstock Street depot near Liverpool City Centre after Liverline had moved to a new depot in Bootle. Many of Merseybus's Merseytravel contracts were transferred to MerseyRider as well as Liverline's commercial service 102 (Walton/Broadway - Broadgreen Hospital). At first the fleet included Merseybus's remaining Willowbrook-bodied Leyland Atlanteans and a number of hired minibuses which were replaced at the beginning of 1993 by new K-registration Marshall-bodied Mercedes-Benz 811Ds and a handful of similar G-registration vehicles bodied by Carlyle and bought secondhand from Cambus. These vehicles were painted in a cream and green livery not dissimilar to the former Liverpool Corporation/Merseyside Transport scheme.

That same year MTL was keen to expand the MerseyRider operation on both marginal services and retain its position in Liverpool's hotly contested bus market. The operation was therefore transferred to the mothballed Shaw Road depot in Speke which Merseybus had vacated in 1989.

A substantial number of Merseybus's East Lancs bodied Leyland Atlanteans were transferred to MerseyRider, appearing at first in a Maroon and Silver variant of Merseybus's maroon livery then a rather more attractive silver and blue scheme until the adoption of MTL 'corporate' cream and crimson livery at the beginning of 1994. Additionally the operations of Blue Triangle were transferred to MerseyRider after MTL acquired that company in the spring of 1994 along with three Alexander Strider-bodied Volvo B10Bs which were part of MTL's initake of new vehicles from 1994 to 1996.

MerseyRider, however, was creating conflict between MTL's management - who were keen to expand the operation further - and its employees and the unions, who were concerned about new drivers being on lower pay scales to those within the core Merseybus operation and a bonus scheme based on the takings of each individual driver - a major source of profitability for MTL's competitors. Unions finally called a series of strikes in 1994 and 1995 after the transfer of service 72 (Halewood - Liverpool City Centre) from Merseybus's Garston depot in South Liverpool to MerseyRider, with the effect that with the exception of MTL Fareway and ironically MerseyRider the entire MTL operation was off the road. MTL reconsidered its position and eventually brought the MerseyRider's terms and conditions in line with those of Merseybus, which compromised the profitability of the operation and subsequently it was closed. Some services were transferred to MTL Fareway and in August 1996 the MerseyRider operation ceased when MTL transferred the Garston depot of Merseybus to the Shaw Road depot in Speke.