Arriva’s new look in Southend

Arriva has revamped five Wrightbus Eclipse bodied Volvo B7RLEs for its service between Southend and Basildon. The refurbished buses have received eco-leather seating, onboard Wi-Fi and a new colour scheme. They are now running on the operator’s Service 5 following an inspection by Southend Members of Parliament, James Duddridge and Sir David Amess, the Mayors of Southend and Castle Point and the Deputy Mayor of Basildon. The route runs every half an hour for the main part of the day on Mondays to Saturdays, running mainly along the A13 but serving Leigh town centre between Chalkwell and Hadleigh. The buses started life on the Fastrack A service in Kent Thameside, where they were replaced in the summer by new StreetLites

Arriva Marketing Manager, Richard Lewis, said, “We’re pleased to have invested in this vehicle upgrade to give our Service 5 customers an improved journey experience and we hope that the striking new “MAX” livery will increase awareness of the service to encourage more people to start using it. Our customers in other areas clearly like free Wi-Fi on their buses and we are sure that this feature will become just as popular on this route as they travel through Westcliff, Leigh-on-Sea, Hadleigh, Thundersley and Benfleet.’