History
Sullivan Buses was formed in 1998 by its owner, Dean Sullivan, who had previously worked as a manager for London Underground Ltd (LUL). One of Dean’s responsibilities with LUL was to deal with railway replacement bus services on behalf of the company. Independently of this, Dean owned three preserved ex-London buses and, with the assistance of a large bus operator, certified one of these buses for class six (PSV) use. Amongst Sullivan Buses' first PSV jobs was work for the Docklands Light Railway and London Underground. This success encouraged us to purchase our first OPO double deck in 1998. The bus was a former London Buses Leyland Titan (T85) purchased from Leaside Buses Limited. From here work soon grew and the first two buses were later joined by T890. T85 & T890 are still owned by the company. In 1999 a depot was established at South Mimms service area in Hertfordshire. This was joined by the former White Rose depot in Surrey in February 2002. Our first Transport for London (TfL) route was the 383 in the Barnet area using single deck Darts from South Mimms; we have since won the TfL contract for route 606 Edgware - Barnet.

In January 2005 we acquired the bus and coach business of Southlands Travel, Kent and ran operations from Polhill Depot. This operation has since been passed on to its local management.

Sullivan Buses currently operates regular bus routes in London, Hertfordshire and Surrey and is heavily involved in assisting railway companies with replacement bus services when enginerring work disrupts rail travel. Many of our buses have London Transport origins but more recent buses have been bought new. Several Dennis Dart Super Low Floor (SLF) buses, a Volvo low floor double decker and a Dennis Trident have entered the fleet and we are keen to move to full SLF operation in the near future.

Ticket Machines
We use the latest electronic ticket machines. Wayfarer TGX Graphics machines are cutting edge ETM’s and are used on our stage carriage services in London and Hertfordshire. These machines are an updated version of those in use by Transport for London. The Graphics machines allow us to produce a wide range of tickets from Singles to full Annual Passes.

Modern technology
Sullivan Buses has invested in Satellite tracking and onboard CCTV.

Depots
We currently have two operating bases. Our main operation is at South Mimms in Hertfordshire which gives us excellent access to the M25 and M1. Heavy engineering work is carried out at our works in North Mymms (the different spelling is correct!). We have also established a base at Thorpe Park in Surrey. Depots at Staines (Surrey) and Polhill (Kent) are no longer used.

Filming
Sullivan Buses regularly supplies buses to the BBC for shows such as Doctor Who, The Bill, Eastenders and Holby City. We often supply buses for TV adverts and major feature films. Harry Potter is familiar with our vehicles, even though none of our current fleet exceeds two decks!

Liveries
Most of our vehicles are in fleet livery of red with white relief (buses) or yellow relief (coaches), although new acquisitions sometimes operate in their previous owners' colours pending repaint. T1983 is in a special gold livery, M276 was in an all-over advertisement for ASDA. Two Routemasters have been restored to London Transport Lincoln Green. Most LLWs nad one DN are in blue for the Thorpe Park Shuttle 950.

Use the links on the left to view our fleetlist and photos, or see the Latest page for fleet news and forthcoming events.