Johnson’s
Coach Travel was founded in 1909 and incorporated as a
limited company in 1932. Until 2024 it was always been a family
owned and operated business and is based at purpose
built facilities at Henley-in-Arden in Warwickshire. The
company specialises in the provision of both British and
Continental holidays together with a programme of day
tours. In recent years the Company has diversified into
bus operation and has been successful in winning a
number of contracts mainly with Warwickshire County
Council. As a bus operator Johnson’s Coaches has served
Redditch for a number of years with a Thursdays only
shoppers service from Henley in Arden and Stratford.
This service was for a number of years regularly run
using a double deck bus which was filling in between
school trips. In recent years the service is now more
normally run using one of the Company’s many Bova
coaches.
On
Tuesday 27th May 2003 Johnson’s took over the operation
of the bus services 178/9 from Redditch to Birmingham
via Wythall a route that Pete’s Travel had mainly
operated since October 2001. The emergency
Worcestershire County Council contract awarded to
Johnson’s does not call for low floor bus though the
Company has been using a mixture of low floor and
non-low floor vehicles. The company went onto having a
more long term contract for the 178 with Worcestershire
County Council until October 2011. When Worcestershire
County Council put the service out to tender it was
registered commercially by Solihull Travel as X50. This
lasted only a few weeks when Solihull Travel stopped
operating as they did not have any vehicle insurance.
Johnson's resumed operation of the service (still
numbered X50). Following retendering they retained the
service with a longer term contract with Worcestershire
County Council. On Sunday 22nd April 2012 the company
took over the Sunday and Bank Holiday service 248 from
Redditch to Evesham from First Midland Red.
In December 2014 the Company expanded by announcing the purchase of the coaching part of the Whittle Coach and Bus business that had been up for sale by its owners East Yorkshire Traction. The Whittle business had been losing money for some time with the bus operation being he least profitable part of the business. The bus operation finished on Saturday 3rd January 2015 with Worcestershire and Shropshire County Councils having to find alternative operators for their tendered bus routes that were run by Whittles. The National Express diagrams were taken back by National Express just leaving the coach operation to be sold to Johnsons. Click for the official announcement
On Thursday 28th April 2022 it was announced that the whole of the Excel bus operation would be sold to Diamond bus's parent company Rotala PLC for £936K.The deal included all commercial and tendered bus services run by Johnson's plus 18 of the current bus fleet and around 50 staff. Diamond Bus would take the operation over from 29th May 2022 when the Excel operation would move to their Redditch depot and be integrated into the Diamond operation and brand.
Saturday 7th May 2022 saw the end of local bus operation
in Redditch by Johnson's. Due to staff shortages this
was three weeks earlier than planned. Services 150, 149
and 64 transferred to Diamond Bus. Service 150 was cut
back to terminate in Kings Heath. The Redditch to
Bromsgrove College contract s R1 and B1 also moved
to Diamond Bus together with the S83 school service to
Bromsgrove High School. The remainder of the bus
business and 18 vehicles were transferred to Diamond Bus
on Sunday 29th May 2022. Diamond Bus actually started
operating the Johnson services on Monday 30th May as
Johnson's operated the Sundays only X50 from Chipping
Norton to Birmingham for one last time on Sunday 29th
May using bus vehicles that were not transferring to
Diamond bus as shown above of YJ68OVV at Chipping Camden
whilst working 0910 departure to Birmingham on 29th May
2022 bring down the end of 22 years of local bus
operation.
On 7th June 2024 both Johnson and Whittle coach businesses were sold to the The Coach Travel Group. This allowed the long term owners Jon and Pete Johnson to retire.