Soaring to New Heights

Over the next few months on the blog, we will be covering a number of service changes that are due to be happening around the Heathrow area. 



Our first post of this series will be focusing on route 482, between Southall Town Hall and Heathrow Terminal 5, who has seen a change of operator recently. 


One of London's newer routes to the network is route 482, which opened in May 2008 as part of the opening to Heathrow Terminal 5. The route itself, is only 7 years old, however the history behind route 482 is much older.

Dating back to 2001, New Bharat Travel operated a commercial route with the number of 805, between Hayes Lombardy Retail Park (Or simply known as 'The Grapes' which is opposite the road) and Heathrow Cargo Area via Yeading, White Hart, Lady Margaret Road, and then the current 105 to Harlington Corner, then around Western Perimeter Road to Hatton Cross, and around the Southern Perimeter Road to terminate at Heathrow Cargo Area. Running every 30 minutes, Bharat used ALX200s and Pointers on this service from their Southall base. Buses were in their white livery with manual roller blinds with a PVR of 5.

Soon after, the route 805 was withdrawn between Lady Margaret Road and Hayes, The Grapes and re-routed to follow the current E10 via Smiths Farm, but then running on the slip road onto Western Avenue, approaching Target Roundabout and commencing Northolt Station to terminate. The PVR was raised by 1, to create 6. The service by now ran to the Terminal 5 construction site, however the route still did not run in the late evenings, with services ceasing operation southbound after 2100 and northbound after 2200. A map of the last route record can be seen here: Southbound and Northbound.

Summing up the 805:
 - Operated by Bharat Travel
 - Ran daily
 - Peak Vehicle Requirement (PVR) was 6
 - Ran with Dennis Darts
 - Every 30 minutes

In 2005 saw Transport for London (TfL) take onboard this route, of which they had warmed to the idea. Incorporating route 805 into the tendering system, the route was put out on tender as route 435. TfL decided to make cut backs to route 805, and withdraw it between Northolt Station and Southall, Town Hall - making it a much shorter route. Soon, it was announced that route 435 was awarded, out of NINE tenderers, to First Centrewest from Greenford (G) garage. For security reasons, the route had to be made even shorter on the southern end as well, the route being discontinued between Terminal 5 construction site and Heathrow, Sealand Road (Cargo Centre). Here is a map of route 435 showing the Northbound and Southbound routing. 

Discussing the bids for what seemed a popular and easy route to win, having 9 bids for a route is definitely a rarity!  There were several different bids: some involved having the new route 435 as a single decker route, others bidding for the route with double deckers. Bids ranged from £650,000 up to just over a million, with First's bid standing at £645,000 - the lowest and cheapest which is what TfL are after, as First asked only to be paid a mere £3 a mile that each of their buses ran. 

Using TNs, mainly Y-reg, the route ran on a PVR of 3, still at an every 30-minute frequency. However, as a lot of West Londoners particularly will know, Southall suffers bad traffic - this problem has been ongoing for years back. Drivers had very little layover time at both ends of the route and therefore if held up, all pillow time was eaten up quickly, and easily could affect the next journey back to the destination they came from. For the first 4 months of this route's service, this problem was consistent - drivers had no break time (and by law were required to have a break after a set time) and the 435 was deemed relatively unreliable. To aid the traffic issues at Southall, which was the primary cause of all this, in October 2005, a 4th bus was added to the schedule, so that drivers, when they reached Southall had a nice and lengthy break - as well as longer pillow time. On the old schedule, drivers only had about 5 minutes stand time at both ends, and it usually takes about 10-15 minutes to wriggle out of Southall on a good day, so stand time on one rounder has been eaten up at both ends. Stand time at Heathrow was increased slightly to roughly to 7 minutes whilst at Southall drivers got a whopping 20 minute break! 

Buses still ran as before with 805, as there was no late evening service - buses ceased operation at about 2100-2200.

Summing up the 435:
 - Ran Daily
 - Every day service, every 30 minutes
 - PVR originally 3, raised to 4 to improve reliability
 - Operated by First from Greenford (G)
 - Used Plaxton President bodied Dennis Trident
 - No late evening service.

The opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 in 2008 saw TfL review bus routes around the Heathrow area. TfL planned to incorporate 4 of their bus routes into the new Terminal 5 transport network. Routes H23, H50, 435 and 490 were the chosen routes although all of the routes, with the exception of route 490 (who terminated at Hatton Cross and was extended via Southern Perimeter Road to Terminals 4 and 5) had their contracts terminated and were resurrected on the opening of Terminal 5 as 3 brand new routes: 350 (replacing H50), 423 (replacing H23) and 482, who replaced route 435. Unlike 350 and 423 who had very similar or the same routing to their successors, route 482's routeing had not much in common after Hatton Cross Station from T5.  

London United SP3 (YN56 FCD) on route 482 at Southall Town Hall stand back
in March 2013. Ironically this photo was taken exactly two years ago today!

Route 482 began running between Heathrow Cargo Area and Southall, Town Hall whilst Terminal 5 was undergoing it's last checks before it's launch on the first Wednesday after 482 was introduced, as a result of security checks before being extended to Terminal 5 on the official opening day. After Hatton Cross, route 482 runs along the Great-South-West Road to reach Hounslow West station, before paralleling route H32 via Heston and Covent Way to reach Southall, Town Hall - whereas route 482 acts as a relief for route H32, route 435 acted as a relief route for route 105. 

The new 482 service is slightly more frequent and has longer running hours. The service starts at 0320 and finishing at 0130, nearly a 23-hour service. Unlike 435 who was a 2-an-hour service, 482 is a 3-an-hour service running every 20 minutes during Monday-Saturday daytime, although retains a traditional 2-an-hour service on Sundays and early mornings/late evenings. 

Transdev won the tenders for route 482 from their Hounslow Heath (HH) garage, with 9 Scania OmniCities DD ordered, numbers SP16-24 as route 482 has a PVR of 8. Interestingly, until late 2012, 482 was host to what was then a relatively new project: hybrid buses. Two extra buses were ordered for 482, this time in the form of Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 Hybrids, as we know them, ADH1 and ADH2 (SN58 EOR/S) which are now on route 27 at Stamford Brook (V).

In December 2012, ADH1 and ADH2 were withdrawn from route 482 and transferred to route 94 at Shepherd's Bush (S) for a fortnight before moving to route 27.

Soon after, it was announced in 2014 that route 482 had been lost to Metroline West. The allocation at this rate saw frequent sightings of single deckers on route 482: Alexander Dennis Enviro 200s and Plaxton Pointer 2 bodied Dennis Darts were the norm, as well on route H91 who is up for tender soon (I predict that RATP will lose the route as well). SP20 (YN08 DHE) was soon announced the last bus on route 482 at RATP Group, with the first bus at Metroline West being ex-First 33597 (SN09 CFM). 

Metroline West TE1737 (SN09 CFM) takes stand time at Heathrow Terminal 5 on route 482's first day of operation.

Metroline West now run route 482 from their Greenford (G) garage using the buses that were left for spares from routes E1 and E3 last year - however Metroline are using only part of that batch. Buses have been split into two sub-batches. 33575-33601 will stay at Greenford (G) for routes 282 and 482, both contracts started on the 21st March, whilst 33602-33611 will go to Uxbridge (UX) for route U4.

First Day Syndrome DID NOT occur, perhaps because of the new timetable and the fact the route is every 20 minutes. Enthusiasts haven't been able to note a single curtailment this weekend nor bunching, so so far Metroline are off to a flying start. Let's hope the best for route 482!