Yorkshire Tiger

Stagecoach

In December 2005 Stagecoach Yorkshire purchased the Huddersfield operations and depot of Yorkshire Traction.

In March 2008 it was reported that Arriva were in discussions with Stagecoach to purchase their bus operations in Huddersfield. Arriva Yorkshire already operated services in the town, so purchasing Stagecoach's operations would enlarge their presence. At the time Arriva registered a trading name of The Huddersfield Bus Company, registered on the Arriva Southern Counties licence.

In May 2008 Centrebus Holdings purchased the business. Centrebus Holdings was owned by three directors of Centrebus who together owned 56% and Arriva the remaining 44%. Despite the common name and livery, Centrebus Holdings has never been owned by the Centrebus company.

Hinckley operations

In August 2008 Arriva Midlands' Hinckley depot was sold to Centrebus Holdings. In September 2008 Centrebus purchased the Leicester bus operations of Woods Coaches and services 58 and 140 were transferred to Centrebus Holdings.

Centrebus were given an emergency contract for route 148 in September which was previously operated by Thurmaston Bus, during December 2012. Wide Horizon Coaches of Hinckley ceased trading and Centrebus were awarded an emergency contract for their H1 service by Leicestershire County Council, for four months until a review of tendered bus services around the Hinckley area was carried out. Centrebus were originally awarded a new contract for a revised service 148 which would have covered services 5, 8 and H1. However, Centrebus Holdings took the commercial decision to merge services 8 and H1 into the current 148 which was expanded into Hinckley. Service 5 was kept on as a tendered service.

On 9 September 2013 the Hinckley based operations were rebranded as Hinckley Bus.

Centrebus Holdings

With the purchase of both Stagecoach and K-Line, Centrebus Holdings became the second largest bus operator in Huddersfield after First West Yorkshire. Centrebus decided to retain the K-Line brand, and operate the former Stagecoach services under the Huddersfield Bus Company name, although the Centrebus name was used for the rest of the West Yorkshire operations.

In January 2010 Centrebus Holdings took over some contracted services previously run by First West Yorkshire in the Calderdale area, including Greetland, Halifax, Ripponden, Sowerby Bridge and Stainland. Unlike services in Huddersfield, most of the Calderdale services began to run under the Centrebus brand, while routes 536 and 537 were operated by Huddersfield Bus Company from their Waterloo depot and route 343 was operated by K-Line.

As a result, a new depot was established in Elland for the Calderdale operations.

The services that Centrebus Holdings obtained were:

In April 2010, Centrebus Holdings obtained another service under the Huddersfield Bus Company division, taking over routes 435/436 from Arriva Yorkshire. They also extended further by obtaining three Leeds Bradford Airport bus services that were previously run by First, routes 737 and 747 to Bradford and 757 to Leeds. Like the Calderdale operations, these services operated under the Centrebus name, with a depot on Kirkstall Road.

The company would face competition as First continued to run the 757 service between the airport and Leeds railway station, while Centrebus ran to Leeds City bus station. However, since July 2010 Centrebus have been the only operator of route 757 after First withdrew their service. At the same time, Centrebus began to operate many more services in the Bradford and Leeds areas, winning contracts from Metro for services previously run by First, while some services are jointly operated by the two companies.

In October 2010 Halifax Joint Committee's routes 28A, 34 and 36 were taken over by Centrebus's Elland depot while K-Line took over route 31. The A99 service, which runs during term time between the University of Bradford and Bradford University School of Management campuses, was taken over by Centrebus in 2012 having previously been operated by First. At the same time the service was made free to use for university students.

Yorkshire Tiger

In September 2013 Arriva bought out its partners and rebranded the company Yorkshire Tiger. Its fleet is gradually being repainted with the new brand identity, consisting of overall orange with tiger prints. Many of its contracted services in Calderdale fall under a new sub-brand, 'The Calder Cubs'. These are all operated with Optare Solo buses, which all have free wifi and USB plug sockets.

A fire at its Elland depot in December 2015 saw ten of its buses destroyed.

Flying Tiger

In April 2014, Yorkshire Tiger's services to Leeds Bradford Airport (737, 747 and 757) began using the sub-brand Flying Tiger. For the 757 service from Leeds, new Optare Versa buses in a blue livery have been used and the service frequency increased to every 20 minutes. Existing Scania OmniCity buses used on routes 737 and 747 (Bradford to the airport and Bradford to Harrogate respectively) were also refurbished and rebranded.

Tiger Blue

Tiger Blue (formerly known as K-Line) is a bus operator based in Honley, West Yorkshire. Tiger Blue operate a number of public bus services in the Kirklees area. The company is only second to First Calderdale & Huddersfield in terms of the number of services operated in the Huddersfield area. The company also runs the FreeTownBus service in Huddersfield town centre, which is a free bus service running a circular route around the town centre.

History

K-Line was founded in 1980 initially operating out of a garage in Kingburton. With deregulation in 1986, it began operating commercial services in Huddersfield and tendered services in Elland. In November 1993, K-Line was purchased by Pride of the Road Group and in 1998 moved to Honley. In May 2008 K-Line was purchased by Centrebus Holdings. It continued to trade as a separate entity from Centrebus, however.

In January 2010, Centrebus Holdings took over some contracted services previously run by First West Yorkshire in the Calderdale area including route 343 that was taken over by K-Line. In October 2010, K-Line took over route 31 from Halifax Joint Committee.

After Arriva wholly purchased Centrebus Holdings in September 2013, it was decided to rebrand most of the business as Yorkshire Tiger while retaining K-Line as a separate brand. In October 2014, Arriva rebranded K-Line as Tiger Blue to bring it in line with the Yorkshire Tiger brand.

Services

Tiger Blue provide several bus services in the Huddersfield area, running during the day Mondays to Saturdays, serving areas such as Almondbury, Brackenhall, Crosland Moor, Golcar, Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, Meltham, Milnsbridge, Mount, Netherton, Newsome, Quarmby and Scapegoat Hill. Buses also run to parts of Calderdale, such as Elland, Halifax, Hebden Bridge and Ripponden. Tiger Blue only run one service on Sundays, the 900 (and then only between Easter and the third Sunday in October) and do not run any services during the evening. Tiger Blue also operates the FreeTownBus service in Huddersfield.

On 29 September 2014, Tiger Blue took over operation of the Kirklees Access Bus contract, for Metro, with four new Optare Solo SRs.

Fleet

As at October 2014, the fleet consists of 144 buses (including Tiger Blue).