The Wilmslow Road bus corridor is a 5.5-mile-long section of road in Manchester that is served by a large number of bus services. The corridor runs from Parrs Wood to Manchester city centre along Wilmslow and Oxford Roads, serving Didsbury, Withington, Fallowfield and Rusholme. Several frequent routes combine to operate along the northern section, providing access to the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) and Christie Hospital. Many services along the route are provided by older vehicles, such as the Magic Bus brand operated by Stagecoach Manchester. Busiest bus corridor in Europe? Wilmslow Road is often claimed to be the busiest bus corridor in Europe. However, this is difficult to verify because: No authoritative comparison is available. The bus frequency on Wilmslow Road varies at different points. This will be true of other corridors and hence the busiest corridor is likely to depend on how short a road can be considered. Bus frequencies vary over the day so the busiest corridor may depend on whether the peak frequency or average frequency is taken. No qualifier is given as to what constitutes 'busy' - whether frequency of buses or total passengers carried and when. The 3.7 mile stretch of route between Piccadilly Gardens and Withington has a timetabled average of at least one bus per minute in each direction on Monday to Friday daytimes during university term. However, particularly during rush hour, there are many buses which do not appear on the timetable and rather repeat the journey as frequently as possible. Two competing bus companies are the major providers of services along the corridor: Stagecoach Manchester (including the Magic Bus brand) and First Greater Manchester. Both companies run frequent services the whole length of the route. The half mile stretch of route in the city centre between the RNCM and Oxford Road station has a timetabled average of nearly a bus every 30 seconds in each direction. In 2006, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Transport was told: History Bus deregulation in 1986 allowed bus companies to run services wherever and whenever they wanted. Prior to this, most bus services along Wilmslow Road had been operated by publicly owned operator Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive. In 1986, the bus operation was separated into a stand-alone company, GM Buses. Finglands Coachways started operating their own competitive bus services soon after,