West Midlands bus route 97

West Midlands bus route 97 (Service 97) is a bus route in Birmingham, United Kingdom
Service 97 links Birmingham with Chelmsley Wood.
The Route
Service 97 runs direct between Birmingham City Centre and Chelmsley Wood, serving Garrison Lane, Bordesley Green, Heatlands Hospital, Stechford (Police Station), Lea Hall (Meadway), Tile Cross, Bosworth Drive and Chelmsley Circle. Service 97 then also serves Greenlands Road and Yorkminster Drive before returning to terminate at Chelmsley Circle. Variant 97A continues from Greenlands Road to Birmingham Airport via Coleshill Heath Road. National Express West Midlands is the sole operator, running frequent 5 minute services Monday to Saturday daytimes, every 10 minutes Sunday daytimes, every 15 minutes evenings and hourly at night. This includes two services an hour and the night service running as 97A.
Alternative services run between Birmingham and Chelmsley Wood (Circle), namely services 14, 55 & 94, however service 97 is the most direct route with a journey time of approximately 35-40 minutes.
Service 97A is not the most direct service between Birmingham and Birmingham Airport (this being service 900), however it is the only service to the airport at night.
Night Service
For many years Birmingham City Transport then WMPTE ran a comprehensive network of night bus services. In the mid 1990s the then Centro sponsored night services were reduced to Friday and Saturday nights only until even these were discontinued in the late 2000s. The revival of a night service in 2013 is thanks to sponsorship by Birmingham Airport and is more about opening up employment opportunities than aiding travel for late night or early morning flight passengers.
History
Service 97 was introduced by WMPTE in mid 1975. Prior to this, services along Bordesley Green/Meadway were provided by ex-Birmingham City Transport service 53 which ran as far as Tile Cross Road (junction with Shirestone Road) approximately every 12 minutes Monday to Saturday daytimes (every 20 minutes evenings and Sundays) and service 54 which ran to similar frequencies as far as Stechford (Stuarts Road). In Bordesley, service 53 ran via Fazeley Street and Garrison Lane while service 54 ran via Digbeth and Catell Road. Services to Chelmsley Wood were introduced by Midland Red from the late 1960s as the area developed and as a variant on the operating agreement between Birmingham City Transport and Midland Red ran non-stop from the city boundary at Tile Cross to Birmingham City Centre (except for setting down inbound and picking up outbound). By the end of 1973 the services consisted of service 193 via Bosworth Drive and past the southern edge of Chelmsley Circle then Greenlands Road to Helmswood Drive junction, and service 169 also via Bosworth Drive and past Chelmsley Circle then Moorend Avenue and Berwicks Lane to Helmswood Drive junction. Together these services provided a 10 minute frequency Monday to Saturday daytimes meaning that, in a reversal of the usual situation, the stop just outside the city boundary had a more frequent service than the stop just within the boundary (the terminus of service 53). Additionally service 163 provided a service that ran on to Cooks Lane then Chelmsley Road and past the northern edge of Chelmsley Circle on to the Chelmsley Road / Helmswood Drive junction. This service also ran every 20 minutes Monday to Saturday daytimes and together with the 169/193 provided a 10 minute evening and 20 minute Sunday service to either side of Chelmsley Circle. A forth service via Bordesley Green / Meadway was the half hourly service 195 to Chelmsley Wood North (Aaron Way) via Forth Drive. Yorkminster Drive was first served by service 171 which ran via Yardley, Garretts Green Lane and Marston Green. This then linked up with Coleshill via Water Orton service 161 to provide a circular service, 161 inbound via Yardley, 171 outbound via Yardley.
Once WMPTE took over the Midland Red service within the West Midlands metropolitan area at the end of 1973, the Chelmsley Wood / Meadway corridor was one of the first to be rationalised although surprisingly this still took 18 months to happen. Service 97 ran as service 53 then via Bosworth Drive, left on Moorend Avenue and Chelmsley Road to Coleshill Heath Drive whilst service 98 ran via Digbeth, also via Whittington Oval and Lea Hall Road, then on to Cooks Lane, Chelmsley Road, Chelmsley Circle, Greenlands Road, right on Helmswood Drive, left on Berwick Lane, then Coleshill Road and Station Road to Marston Green Station. Service 97 ran every 6 minutes Monday to Saturday daytimes but with every other service terminating at Shirestone Road, and service 98 ran every 12 minutes. Both services ran every 15 minutes evenings and Sundays (with all 97 journeys running through to the end of Chelmsley Road) to give a combined 7/8 minute frequency during these periods. Service 195 was also renumbered to service 99 additionally running via Whittington Oval and Lea Hall Road (and later extended slightly to terminate at the Auckland Drive / Lanchester Way junction) with both this and service 161/171 also becoming all-stop services. The main part of Berwicks Lane was now served by a Solihull to Chelmsley Wood via Sheldon service (a situation which continues to this day). By the end of the decade most Shirestone Road variants were instead terminating at Chelmsley Circle, then in 1982 these services were extended to run the length of Yorkminster Drive (including evenings and Sundays) and renamed 97A.
In 1986 West Midlands Travel discontinued service 98. Service 97 was diverted to serve Greenlands Road and in turn service 161/171 diverted off Yorkminster Drive to serve the eastern half of Chelmsley Road (the western half being served by a re-routing of service 94). Service 97A was also diverted to serve Digbeth and renumbered to service 96, whilst service 99 became a feeder service by terminating at Bordesley Green (Belchers Lane) inbound. Services 96 and 97 together now ran (alternate) every 5 minutes and every 15 minutes evenings and Sundays. In 1989 service 99 once again served Birmingham but now from Whittington Oval via Yardley, Yardley Green Road and Small Heath (Glovers Road), whilst service 161/171 via Chelmsley Wood was renumbered as service 59. This was also the year that minibuses came to Chelmsley Wood in the form of service H (later 98), a short one way loop to and from Chelmsley Circle via Dunster Road and Berwicks Lane, and service E (later 670) as today's service 91 as far as Elmdon Road. In 1992 minibus service 98 was withdrawn and service 59 instead diverted via Dunster Road (which to this day is served by buses on route to Coleshill, now route 70). The eastern half of Chelmsley Road remained served by Chelmsley Wood - Airport service 966. Later in the decade service 670 was renumbered to 676 and extended first to Sheldon and Acocks Green, then to International Station. In 2006/07 service 96 was diverted to also run via Garrison Lane rather than Digbeth and renumbered to service 97A. Also service 99 was discontinued (Lea Hall Road instead served by buses via Yardley). In March 2013, Greenlands Road and Yorkminster Drive services were combined into today's loop service. Initially the Airport variants, introduced at the same time, also ran as service 97 distinguishable only by their destination display. However in July 2013, to avoid confusion, these services adopted their current 97A number.
A number of alternative operators have provided competition on the route since the early 1990s, most significantly United Group, People's Express, and Diamond. This competition led to a temporary skewing of the balanced (10 minutes each daytime) frequency of the 97 and 96 services during the early/mid 1990s in favour of service 97 (this being the focus of most of the competition) as well as some counter faux competition by West Midlands Travel subsidiary Travel Your Bus in the late 1990s / early 2000s. The most recent competitor Central Connect withdrew their service 97/97A operation in 2011.

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