Arriva enters Polish rail venture

Arriva is steadily growing its European interests

UK transport group Arriva has bolstered its position in Europe, by entering a joint venture in Poland's rail market.

The firm, which now has a presence in ten European countries, has also taken a 49% stake in an Italian bus firm.

Sunderland-based Arriva added that it was seeing strong passenger growth in its UK bus business.

On Tuesday, rival Stagecoach unveiled a profits jump which it said was helped by people switching to buses and trains because of environmental concerns.

Progress

The three-year deal to run trains in north-west Poland with local operator PCC is expected to generate revenues of about £20m, Arriva said.

The firm's Italian business, SAB Autoservizi, is paying 6.8m euros (£4.6m; $9.1m) to buy into a joint venture with SPT Linea, running 317 buses in the Lombardy region.

"This strengthens our position as the largest private bus operator in the Italian transport market," said Arriva chief executive David Martin.

Deutsche Bank analysts said that although these two deals were "relatively small in the context of the group", they showed "progress to develop Europe is continuing".