Arriva North West

Arriva North West

VDL/Wright Pulsar 2 in Liverpool in June 2014
Parent	Arriva
Founded	2009
Headquarters	Aintree
Locale	North West England
Service area	Merseyside Cheshire Greater Manchester Lancashire
Service type	Bus services
Hubs	Bolton Liverpool Macclesfield Manchester Runcorn St Helens Southport Widnes
Fleet	783 active vehicles (October 2016)
Website	Arriva North West

Arriva North West is a bus operator running services in North West England. It is a subsidiary of Arriva.

Arriva North West was originally formed following the split of Ribble Motor Services in preparation for privatisation in 1986, with the operations in Merseyside, West Lancashire and Wigan trading as North Western. The name was taken from the former North Western operations, which ran between 1923 and 1976. In 1988 the North Western operations were sold to Drawlane who was later sold to British Bus, who also took over the operations of the Bee Line Buzz Company, who ran services in Greater Manchester. In 1996, British Bus was bought by the Cowie Group. In November 1997 Cowie was rebranded as Arriva with North Western becoming Arriva North West in 1998.

In February 2000, Arriva North West purchased MTL Trust Holdings, which created a larger presence in the Merseyside area and more than doubled the size of the company. In 2002, Arriva North West merged with Arriva Cymru to form Arriva North West & Wales. Three former Arriva Midlands depots in Crewe, Macclesfield and Winsford were transferred into the North West & Wales operation, although Crewe closed in December 2005.

In July 2005 Arriva purchased Blue Bus of Bolton, which almost doubled their presence in Greater Manchester. In January 2009, the Wales operation was split from Arriva North West as Arriva Buses Wales with the Arriva North West name resurrected for the North West England operations.