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Ritchies Coachlines

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Founded
  
1972

Ritchies Coachlines

Ritchies Transport Holdings Ltd was established in 1972 and describes itself on its website as "the largest privately owned bus and coach transport operator in New Zealand" with a fleet of "over 600" vehicles spread across depots nationwide.

Contents

It owns 46.34% of the InterCity coach and tourism company, as does Tranzit Group.

Ritchies' website says Ritchies was "formed in Temuka 70 years ago by John Ritchie (Senior) and is still owned by the Ritchie family." and that its head office "was located in Timaru but at the beginning of December 2003 relocated to Christchurch." The company "expanded into the North Island 20 years ago and now has a large operation in Auckland in addition to branches in Helensville, Dargaville, Whangarei, Rotorua, Blenheim, Christchurch, Ashburton, Timaru, Dunedin, Balclutha, Queenstown, Gore, Ruakaka, and Chatham Islands."

Tourism services

Richies operates coach services for several package tour operators.

Urban services (past and present)

  • Auckland. Ritchies' main urban bus operations are in Auckland, operating out of depots in Swanson and Albany servicing West Auckland including Helensville and the North Shore. Ritchies also operates high-speed services on the Northern Busway on Auckland's North Shore.
  • Blenheim. Ritchies operate the local bus service in Blenheim under contract to the Marlborough District Council. There are two loops that service the town.
  • Timaru and Temuka. Ritchies was founded in this small South Canterbury city. They have operated four Timaru urban bus routes contracted to Metro since 28 June 2010, previously operated by Christchurch Bus Services Ltd. They also run the Timaru-Temuka bus route.
  • Christchurch. With deregulation of bus services Ritchies entered the Christchurch urban market with a number of routes using various buses purchased from other companies, including the ARA, Invercargill City Transport, Timaru City Transport and New Plymouth City Buses. In January 1997 Ritchies sold its Christchurch urban contracts to Christchurch Transport Ltd but retained ownership of the buses.
  • Dunedin. Ritchies amalgamated Dunedin bus lines Turnbull Motors, Peninsular Motor Services and Southern Services in 1975. Since then, Ritchies has operated urban services in Dunedin from time to time. From 1 July 2011, it has operated the Opoho-Shiel Hill, Pine Hill-Lookout Point, and University-Concord routes.

    • References

    Ritchies Coachlines Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA