Private company

Arriva Buses Wales

Bus operator in North Wales and Chester

Arriva Buses Wales (Welsh: Bysiau Arriva Cymru) is a bus operator providing services in north Wales and in Cheshire West and Chester, England. It is a subsidiary of Arriva UK Bus.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

1919Founded1

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Bus on Llangollen Road (geograph 7514541) (cropped)
Photo: David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

Arriva Buses Wales (Welsh: Bysiau Arriva Cymru) is a bus operator providing services in north Wales and in Cheshire West and Chester, England. It is a subsidiary of Arriva UK Bus.2

Corporate structure

Arriva Buses Wales is part of a group headed by Arriva. 50 entities, 5 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Crosville Motor Services was formed in 1919 and operated services in Wales and northern England. It became a subsidiary of National Bus Company before its Welsh operations were split into Crosville Cymru in preparation for sale in 1987 through a management buyout.

In 1989 Crosville Cymru was sold to National Express. In 1991 it was sold again to British Bus.

In August 1996 British Bus was purchased by the Cowie Group. It traded as Arriva Cymru until February 2002, when it merged with Arriva North West to form Arriva North West & Wales.

In August 2008 Arriva purchased routes 9 and 9A with seven buses from KMP.

In January 2009, Arriva North West & Wales was split, with the Welsh operations being managed by a new management team based at Llandudno Junction depot.

The Crosville Cymru / Crosville Wales Limited name exists today but not with Arriva. It is a dormant company and is registered in Wales.

From Wikipedia’s article on Arriva Buses Wales, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Products and brands

Services

Arriva Buses Wales operates services across the north of Wales from Holyhead to Chester and Wrexham. During the summer months open top buses operate services in Rhyl.

Arriva Buses Wales previously operated some Trawscambria services.

As from July 2016 several ex GHA Coaches routes have been taken on by Arriva Buses Wales after GHA Coaches went into administration.

They are as follows:

Read the full text

5 Wrexham to Llangollen

82 Chester to Northwich

DB1 Chester to Mold

DB2 Chester to Saltney

DB4 Chester to Deeside

X51 Wrexham to Denbigh (was X50 with GHA)

They also ran SP1/2 between Ellesmere Port and Mold for a short period.

Fleet

As of February 2016 the fleet consists of 192 vehicles. The majority of the fleet is single deck (68%) and is entirely low floor. There is a wide range of different types in the fleet although DAF and VDL chassis are the most common accounting for 41% of all vehicles in the fleet.

During March 2010 Arriva Buses Wales announced that the fleet was 100% low floor (except open-tops and college/school duties), although high-floor Van Hool coaches were subsequently brought in to replace Optare Tempos on Aberystwyth-Cardiff duties.

Single deck

Dennis Darts, which made up around half the fleet in 2011, had been reduced to just four vehicles by October 2017, all of the 8.8-metre MPD variety. More recent deliveries have been VDL SB120 and SB200 with Wright Cadet, Commander and Pulsar/Pulsar 2 bodywork, as well as Optare Solos of differing lengths. Other types operated include a pair of Optare Versas; a Wright Eclipse bodied Volvo B7RLE, one of seven acquired from K.M.P. in 2008; and fourteen Alexander Dennis Enviro200s which were delivered to Bangor, Wrexham and Rhyl depots in 2015.

Double deck

The most common double deck type in the fleet is the Alexander Dennis Enviro400 - all 40 of which are currently operated on Sapphire services based at Wrexham, Chester and Rhyl depots respectively. The majority of these were delivered brand new - however eleven of these were refurbished after being released from Arriva North West.

Other double deck types in the fleet are the Wright Gemini 2 bodied VDL DB300 which are operated exclusively on Cymru Coastliner services from Rhyl depot and eleven DAF DB250RS. Six of these are East Lancs Myllennium Lowlander bodied (these being cascaded from Arriva Midlands to replace Volvo Olympians at Bangor) whilst the remaining five are former Arriva London Alexander ALX400 bodied examples which have been converted to open top to replace Leyland Olympians to operate the Roller Coaster service between Llandudno and Prestatyn.

From Wikipedia’s article on Arriva Buses Wales, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1919Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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