Major changes to south Birmingham bus routes announced

National Express West Midlands is changing its bus services in south Birmingham, starting this month.

The bus operator has redesigned its network of routes across the area to the south of Birmingham city centre, between Hagley Road and Warwick Road.

The changes will come into effect on July 22.

Tom Stables, managing director of National Express West Midlands, said: “We are making these changes to our bus routes in south Birmingham to improve services and deal with the impact of congestion on buses.

“Because there’s now so much more traffic in the area, especially on the Bristol Road and in the city centre, rush-hour bus journeys have got 12% slower than they were three years ago. On several routes in south Birmingham, the average speed of a bus is under six miles an hour.

“This means our customers can’t get to where they want to be quickly enough.

“We are working closely with Birmingham City Council and Transport for West Midlands to improve road layouts and traffic light phasing at congestion hotspots, but we also have to tackle congestion by making these changes.

“For the past year, National Express West Midlands has been consulting with the public. It was the largest consultation we’ve ever done and we got 10,000 responses. I’d like to thank everyone who gave us feedback – my network planning team read every single response and they used the information you gave us to design the new routes.”

The changes mean that nearly 100,000 more people in south Birmingham will now have easy access to the QE and the university, and more of National Express West Midlands’ buses will be used on these routes.

National Express West Midlands says it has also  invested millions in new ticket machines which accept contactless payment.