the company being sold on to other members. A1 was slow to introduce 'one person operated' buses, only introducing them in 1983, primarily for evening and Sunday bus services, despite unsuccessfully lobbying against their introduction by other operators to the area Traffic Commissioner, and conductors continued on the arterial Ardrossan/Kilmarnock service well into the late 1990s, even under Stagecoach ownership. In the mid-1990s A1 Service found itself in a difficult position. The only profitable service was the trunk Ardrossan/Kilmarnock service, which operated every 10 minutes and demanded the use of double decker buses. The company had also been warned about the mechanical state of some its vehicles by the Traffic Commissioner, as many were becoming elderly and unreliable. As a result, some members decided that they wanted out of the company and offered their shares for sale. The owners came to the agreement that they would approach Western Scottish, which had just recently become a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group, and offer the company for sale. Western Scottish agreed to buy the company and some of its vehicles for £4.3 million, and in January 1995 A1 Service ceased trading as an independent operator and became a subsidiary company of Stagecoach. At the time of sale, Ayrshire Bus Owners (A1 Service) Ltd operated 97 vehicles, owned by 10 members. A Competition Commission report into the take over cleared Stagecoach of being predatory and approved the sale. Today The company was taken over by the Stagecoach Group in January 1995. The simple blue and cream livery the buses wore since the company's formation gave way to the Stagecoach corporate blue, red and orange stripes on white, and the legal name of the firm became Stagecoach (A1 Service) Ltd. Though for several years after the take over buses on the former A1 Service routes wore Stagecoach A1 Service fleetnames, the unit was eventually amalgamated with Western Buses Ltd and all vehicles except those on the Ardrossan-Kilmarnock service began trading as Stagecoach Western. However, buses on route 11 (Ardrossan-Kilmarnock) continued to trade as Stagecoach A1 Service, complete with the historical blue and cream livery, which was re-introduced when FirstGroup began competing on the service. Despite the withdrawal of First from Ayrshire in October 2005, new Dennis Tridents were still delivered in the Stagecoach A1 Service livery and brand. Some of the former A1 members continue to operate their own businesses, including Parkhouse Garage of