Celebrating a decade of Pete's Travel...

Pete's Travel will be celebrating ten years of operation in May this year. Operation began on Tuesday 4th May 1993 on the 404 route between Walsall and West Browmich, when two Dodge minibuses were acquired to operate the service.

 The fleet grew by a further four buses within the next year and in May 1994, Lionspeed, a minibus operation in Sutton Coldfield and Erdington was purchased. Lionspeed had a fleet of Sherpas and six contracts at the time and was already established on local authority approved tender lists. Further tender success came in October 1994 with two off peak and one Sunday route in the West Bromwich area. By February 1995, a commercial network of routes had been introduced in Dudley seeing the fleet rise to an impressive 25 vehicles - however some of the commercial mileage was short lived when further tendered was secured in South Birmingham. Pete's Travel vehicles were originally painted white with a black skirt and red/black fleetnames. However, following the Lionspeed purchase, it was decided to adopt the latter's yellow and green livery for the whole fleet. The route network was expanding steadily and having outgrown the original depot at Queens Court, the company moved to larger premises at Church Lane, West Bromwich in May 1996. The unit offered under-cover accommodation for 50 minibuses aswell as additional outside parking. The fleet was enhanced with the introduction of the first brand new buses for the company - Mercedes minibuses which branded Busy Bus Co branding. 

Various other minibuses were acquired during the latter part of the year. In January 1997, Little Red Bus, a Smethwick based operator, ceased operations and Pete's Travel gained many of their Centro contracts together with nine Dodgers from the fleet. The constant need for buses during the early months of 1997 led to the company hiring a number of vehicles from Cheshire Bus & Coach. Five Mercedes minibuses shortly arrived aswell as the company's first full sized vehicle - A Dennis Dart. The new vehicles proved popular, both with drivers and customers - New vehicles could be out on the road for significantly longer periods than that of the minibuses. In June, Three Dart SLFs, the company's first low floor vehicles followed soon after and were allocated to the 404 service and a further four new Mercedes minibuses followed the Darts in October when more night work was secured in the Stourbridge area. In May 1997, Pete's Travel took over Erdington based North Warwickshire Travel and in July, took a 50% interest in People Express of West Bromwich, who operated 13 vehicles based in Siddons Lane, West Bromwich. The rest of the company was taken over in June 1998. The latter period of 1998 saw Pete's work in Coventry, Telford and Bridgnorth. Pete's moved to new premises in February 1999 - existing depots including the acquired operating bases of North Warwickshire Travel and Peoples Express, aswell as administration would now be concentrated on one site. The under cover maintaince facility at the new site enabled access to double deckers - a feature which was not applicable with the former depots. Ten double deck vehicles, MCW Metrobuses were acquired from London United to operate various school contracts however they were soon phased into operation on commercial routes during the middle of the day. The demand on the Metrobuses, over 20 years old was excessive enough to justify the purchase of newer models.

 The Metrobuses were replaced with Volvo Citybuses and Dennis Tridents, the latter have since been phased out. Contracts were now being operated all over the West Midlands, and with added strain on West Bromwich's fleet, two new depots were opened in Coventry and Redditch. Pete's acquired long established bus and coach operator, Britannia Travel in February 2002. Britannia operator a fleet of twenty coaches on school contracts and is an established private hire operator in the West Midlands - Britannia branding still remains on the vehicles today.

Pete's Travel's origins can be traced to the industry restruction which took place post-deregulation and with shrewd financial management the company has expanded and matured, with a fleet now boasting over 180 vehicles, making it the second largest operator in the West Midlands.