Go North West

Go North West is a bus operator in the North West of England. It is a subsidiary of the Go-Ahead Group, operating franchised Bee Network bus services on contract to Transport for Greater Manchester, and will also operate Metro bus services on contract to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority from October 2026.

Go North West commenced operations on 2 June 2019 following the Go-Ahead Group's purchase of First Greater Manchester's Queens Road depot with 163 vehicles.

In December 2022, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority announced that Go North West had won the first round of franchising to run the first Bee Network bus services in the metropolitan boroughs of Bolton and Wigan from September 2023, displacing the operations of Diamond North West and Stagecoach Manchester in both boroughs. Go North West took delivery of 50 Bee Network branded Alexander Dennis Enviro400EV battery electric buses, the first new buses purchased for the franchised network, for use on these services.

Go North West expanded further into the North West of England with the awarding in January 2026 of a tender by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to run franchised Metro 'Category 1' bus services in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. The contract, which will commence in October 2026, will see Go North West enter Merseyside with a fleet of 117 buses on 45 routes in the Wirral, taking over the operations of Arriva Merseyside and Stagecoach Merseyside and South Lancashire within the borough.

Go North West largely serves suburban areas in Salford, Bury, Bolton, Tameside and Wigan.

Prior to the rollout of the Bee Network brand, certain routes were given branding by the company. The 52 and the 53, the latter being Manchester's oldest unchanged bus route, was branded with an orange livery as the 'Manchester's Orbits', while the 135 route received a similar green livery, both based on the standard fleet livery. In 2021, the CrossCity brand was launched on the 41 service serving Sale and Middleton via the city centre. As of 2024, the 41, 52, 53 and 135 are no longer operated by Go North West following the Queen's Road depot being taken over by Stagecoach Manchester as part of Tranche 2 of Bee Network bus franchising.

As of July 2025, Go North West operates 111 routes with a fleet of 411 buses, consisting a large amount of buses transferred from across the Go-Ahead Group, most of them from Go-Ahead London, with some of the buses acquired from First Greater Manchester. Also, a large amount also acquired from Diamond Bus North West in September 2023 with the takeover of their Weston Street depot for Bee Network franchised services. Prior to the rollout of Bee Network branding, buses were initially painted into a livery designed by local marketing agency We Are Buzz, however the livery was redesigned in late 2019. This redesign later coincided with the introduction of the Manchester's Orbits and 135 branding. The default livery went through a few changes again to align with the rollout of the CrossCity livery for service 41 between Middleton and Sale.

Go North West operates out of 4 depots, those being the former First Greater Manchester and Diamond North West depot at Weston Street, Bolton, the former Stagecoach Manchester depot in Wigan, and two smaller depots in Heywood and Denton. These depots are used for franchised Bee Network operations.^{[citation needed]}