First Glasgow was created through FirstGroup's buyout of Strathclyde Buses, which had itself recently bought out the former Kelvin Central Buses. First Glasgow has two operator's licences:
First Glasgow Limited - the former Strathclyde Buses licence
First Glasgow Limited - the former Kelvin Central Buses licence
Buses carry legal signwriting for First Glasgow Limited, despite of this having been a dormant company since at least 2008.
Services
First Glasgow mainly run services in Greater Glasgow and Lanarkshire areas of Strathclyde. However, some services do run outside of these areas. It was one of the first bus operators to introduce an "overground", a colour-coded set of bus routes with route branding on the bus exteriors and timetables. As of 2006, route branding has been removed from buses but remained on timetables until mid 2008. In May 2013 the company introduced a new network in Glasgow called SimpliCITY
SimpliCITY
First Glasgow introduced SimpliCITY in May 2013 as a way to improve bus services in Glasgow. This resulted in buses being branded and receiving route changes and timetable changes. In 2018, First began branding bus routes into colour-specific codes: U1-Red 2 - Lime Green 3- Orange 9/9A - Pink 18 - Red 34/34A - Mint Green 38 - Mint Green 41 - Yellow 61 - Light Blue 65 - Purple 75 - Yellow 77 - Blue 201 - Purple 240 - Light Blue 241 - Red 242 - Bright Pink 254 - Orange 500 - Purple "Airport Express" X1/X3/X11/X85/X87 - Gold "Xpress" Buses have been upgraded to improve the service. This encourages more people to use the bus service and helps customers to identify their bus routes easier.
A Low Emission Zone covering Glasgow city centre was introduced on 31 December 2018; the first phase of this applying solely to local service buses. In October and November 2018, to comply with the new emission standards, First Glasgow placed orders for 150 new buses from Falkirk-based Alexander Dennis, partly funded by the Scottish Green Bus Fund, a Transport Scotland subsidy. The new buses started coming into service from October 2018, many in route-specific coloured branding, with launch events organised involving buses being wrapped in model-style packaging.
Depots
First Glasgow currently operates out of Five depots:
In May 2013, the Cumbernauld depot closed with staff, buses and services transferred to Larkfield, Parkhead and Blantyre depots. The Larkfield depot in Glasgow's Govanhill closed on 18 October 2014, with all staff, buses and services moving to a new purpose-built facility on the site of the former Gushetfaulds railfreight terminal on nearby Cathcart Road. The new depot and head office, known as Caledonia Depot, opened on 14 October 2014. It was officially opened by First Minister of ScotlandNicola Sturgeon on 12 December that year. In January 2016, the Parkhead depot closed after 93 years of operation, and services and drivers transferred to the new Caledonia Depot on Cathcart Road.
Fares
First Glasgow operates an 'exact fare' payment policy which was also used by predecessors Trans Clyde and Strathclyde Buses. In November 2017, First Glasgow introduced a contactless card payment system which is compatible with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Customers can also buy various tickets such as 5 single journeys, 10 single journeys, day, weekly, monthly and 10-week passes through First's official app. Due to this, plans were also put in place for First buses to eventually discontinue cash payments. First Glasgow is also a partner in Glasgow Tripper, an unlimited day pass which can also be used on McGill's, Stagecoach within the Glasgow area, Glasgow Citybus and Whitelaw's.
