Diamond bus announces service changes to five West Midlands routes in and around Birmingham

Bus operator Diamond Bus has announced changes to the five of their services, three of which were due to be withdrawn.

The bus service had said that they would be withdrawing Services 45, 002 and 226 from April 15. However, after concerns from customers, they have decided to only make some changes.

Some of the services will be saved from full cancellations while others will have changes.

Here are the changes to be expected from April 15:

Service 45 Walsall to West Bromwich

Diamond Bus will be withdrawing from Service 45, due to this service being commercially unviable to continue to operate. They are continuing to work with Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), as they assess the options to see if they are able to financially support the continuation of service in this area.

Service 002 Weoley Castle to Merry Hill

Sunday servics will be withdrawn from April 15. Monday to Saturday services will remain as they currently are.

Service 226 Merry Hill to Dudley

Diamond Bus said on their website: “We have reveiwed this, and in order to save this service from cancellation, we will be making some timetable and route changes from 15th April.”

1. The 226 service will revert to the old route, omitting Wall Heath.
2. Monday-Friday journeys - We will remove some early morning journeys, with a 30-min frequency operating during the daytime.
3. Saturday services - these present our most loss making journeys of the week, therefore these will be reduced to an hourly service throughout the daytime.
4. 226A Evening & Sunday services will be renamed back to 226 and remain as per current hourly timetable and route.

Service 4 and 4H Walsall to West Bromwich & Hayley Green

Diamond Bus has also been reviewing Service 4 and 4H, as these services are also no longer commercially viable to continue at the current service level. They will withdraw all Sunday Services from these two routes. Monday to Saturday services will remain as they currently are.

Why are the changes happening?

Diamond bus said: “These routes are Commercial Services which we operate without any level of subsidy. They are funded purely on the income through our ticket sales, the income received though accepting network cards (such as nBus and nNetwork) and National Concessionary Passes. Unfortunately, all our Commercial Services are loss-making in the TfWM area.

“The changes we have made will reduce our losses on the overall service operations and we hope they will improve the viability of these routes so that we are able to maintain them for our passengers going forward.

“These service will continue to be reveiwed in future to assertain their ongoing commercial viability, therefore we encourage people to support their local services to ensure they are able to be sustained and continue.”

Further updates from TfWM regarding these services can also be found on their website.