TRANSPORT group Arriva is close to completing a £28m investment in 199 new vehicles for its Merseyside routes.

This Monday, the penultimate phase of investment took place when 14 new buses operating the Liverpool to Southport route entered service.

And, on April 1, the final delivery of 13 buses on the Liverpool to Croxteth route will boost Arriva’s Merseyside network, which accounts for about 60% of the region’s bus services.

Phil Stone, managing director for Arriva North West, said: “This is a significant investment and underlines Arriva’s commitment to providing a high-quality, fully accessible bus service for our customers in Merseyside.”

The parent group, which provides bus and rail services throughout Europe, yesterday reported a 19% fall in profits for the year to December 31, down from £150m to £121.7m.

Recession and unusually higher fuel costs of £60m were blamed.

Chief executive David Martin said the group had come through “a challenging year with resilient earnings”.

He added: “Throughout the year, we worked on business improvement measures to counteract the effects of a deep recession throughout Europe and the legacy of some unusually high fuel costs.

“Trading is healthy in most mainland European countries, our UK bus business is showing continuing strength and the acceleration of passenger revenue growth in our UK rail franchises is encouraging.”

He said the group has “excellent prospects for substantial progress” with a £30m reduction in fuel costs in 2010 and new contracts already secured.

Revenues for the year increased from £3.04bn to £3.14bn, primarily from improvements in mainland Europe operations and despite a fall at UK trains from £837.8m in 2008 to £702.6m last year which led to its operating profits dropping from £33.7m to £12.1m due to the effects of the recession on travel.

The group operates Arriva Trains Wales and Cross Country services.

UK Buses managed a 4% improvement in revenues to £961.5m, but operating profits slipped from £99.3m to £91.2m.