DEU-Wuppertaler Stadtwerke (WSW Mobil)

News: in June 2020 WSW put 10 Van Hool New A330 Fuel Cell buses into service as part of an EU-wide project. Click here for the type sheet.
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The city of Wuppertal has around 350 000 inhabitants. As a city it is young, created in 1929 through the merger of some older cities like Barmen, Cronenberg, Elberfeld, and Vohwinkel. These former independent cities played an important role in the industrialisation. The city lies in the valley of the river Wupper, hence its name which means “Wupper Valley”.

Backbone of the public transit system is the “Schwebebahn” monorail, which runs east-west and connects (from east-to-west) Oberbarmen with Barmen, Unterbarmen, Elberfeld, Varresbeck, Sonnborn and Vohwinkel. Most of the 13 km long line is located above the River Wupper.

Tramways disappeared in 1987, but already 1969 enthusiasts founded a Museum – Bergische Museumsbahnen – which still operates on few kilometers a heritage tram line on Sundays during the summer season.  Until 1959 a rack-trail connected the valley in Barmen with the heights of Toelleturm.

Major sights are for example the Schwebebahn, the Zoo, Museum of early industrialisation with the Engels-House,  lots of parks, the guildhall “Historische Stadthalle”, and the swimming pool “Schwimmoper”.

Major operator is the Wuppertaler Stadtwerke – divided now into  a division for supply with Water and Electricity, and the WSW Mobil GmbH Division, responsible for the public transport. The company was created in 1948.

WSW Mobil operates different kind of services:
CE = CityExpress-Services, running fast from the suburbs to the centres of Barmen and Elberfeld and also connecting Wuppertal with its neighbour Solingen;
E = Einsatzwagen, supplemental servcies for schools, events, an also early in the morning/ late night, before respectively after scheduled services;
One “E-“service is called E60 and operates when the Schwebebahn is not in operation due to construction works or larger service disruptions;
NE = NachtExpress (Nightservices), running usually on the weekend-nights and on holidays, connecting the Central Station with all suburbs from 1 am to 4 am as circular lines;
SB = SchnellBus Express-Services to neighbour cities;
Regular Services are just marked with Numbers, for example 625.

In addition, some on-demand services are in operation, divided into “AnrufSammelTaxi” (Shared Taxi on request) and TaxiBus, which runs a route like a “normal” bus but only on request.

In all 63 Bus-services are in operation (incl. 9 night services), some of these in cooperation with other companies.

Further operators in Wuppertal and cooperating operators of WSW Mobil GmbH are:Busverkehr Rheinland/ DB Bahn Rheinlandbus, Oberbergische Verkehrs-AG, Rheinbahn, Stadtwerke Remscheid GmbH,  Stadtwerke Solingen GmbH,  and Verkehrsgesellschaft Ennepe-Ruhr.

Stadtwerke Solingen operates the only Trolleybus left in Wuppertal from Wuppertal-Vohwinkel to Solingen-Burg. A trolleybus-network operated by WSW operated in Wuppertal from 1949 to 1972.

Homepage (official) : www.wsw-online.de
The WSW-hertiage group: www.vhag-wsw.de
Tramway Museum: www.bmb-wuppertal.de