Monday 16 January 2012

Claypits calamity / Hamble uncut / Xela coming to Portswood

Some journeys on Bluestar 8 will be diverted in Applemore for four weeks from this Wednesday, due to the closure of Claypits Lane. The few journeys a day that run via Claypits Lane and Southampton Road will instead run via Challenger Way and Hythe Hospital, as most journeys on the 8 already do. I've doctored this map to make it a bit clearer:



First 16 gets an extra journey on Sunday evenings as of this Sunday 22nd January. The additional journey will run at 2030 from Southampton to Hamble and at 2105 from Hamble to Southampton. This is a partial reversal of the cuts that took place in December, but the 16 is still left finishing 2 hours earlier than it did before those cuts took effect. Anyway, here's the new full Sunday timetable:



Xelabus, fresh from launching the X4 and X5 as full fare-taking services in Eastleigh, have announced that they'll be running two new routes to serve the new Sainsbury's supermarket in Portswood when it opens in the Spring. We don't yet know exactly where the X13 and X14 will run, but we'll keep an eye out and will let you know.

7 comments:

  1. The 16 changes are to the Mon-Fri times for service 16. Not the Sun buses as you say as the 2030 journey from Soton & the return ARE in the 4 Dec 2011 timetable book
    The College diverted buses now become 16A (again?!).
    Service 16 around 1800/1900 M-F have been tweaked.
    The 1840 bus from Soton now becomes the 1832 as the 1818 departure is lost. From Hamble the 1840 is lost & the 1916 becomes the 1908.

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  2. According to the timetable on First's website, the 2030 Sunday service from town hasn't run since 27th November. So First have got it wrong either on their website or in the printed timetable.

    The college buses have been 16A for quite a while on their web timetables. Whether that is what appears on the buses though is another matter entirely. This is First we're talking about after all.

    The weekday changes you mention appear to have already taken place in December, if First's online timetables can be believed. Traveline backs this up too.

    Thanks for checking and commenting though. It's always good to keep me on my toes! :-)

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  3. Yep, it's First, so know what you mean! Printed book timetables show 16A's as 16's.
    I don't always trust Traveline either as they had service 76 Whiteley to Fareham still in their results a year after it finished. When I told them of this they said they get their info from HCC. Then again they get their info from operators & 76 was a First route!!!! Keep up the good work.

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  4. Traveline in Hampshire is pretty good - the county council have one particularly conscientious employee who is really good at getting all the operators to let her know what is happening.

    The problems with out of date services like the 76 appearing are usually as a result of a registration being 'varied', but not specifying that an entire variant has gone (e.g the 76 was probably on with the 26 and 28, but then just 'vanished' from that registration without it being specifically highlighted as withdrawn).

    Operators are supposed to verify all the Traveline information, but some are far better at this that others.

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  5. I commend you on the clarity of your service alterations - a very clear map of the Hythe diversion and the highlighted extra journey on 16.

    Why can't operator-produced publicy be this clear? Perhaps you could sell them your services!

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  6. I have seen a copy of the 26/28/76 registration and the 76 was definately highlighted as deregistered, infact the whole timetable fundamentally changed.

    "Operators are supposed to verify all the Traveline information, but some are far better at this that others."

    I think you'll find the biggest problem was Traveline SW were changing over software suppliers at the time causing a massive backlog of timetables to verify, it wasn't that operators couldn't be bothered it was there was no access to the new system to verify.

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  7. It seems that Xelabus are slyly establishing a network of so-called free shopper routes which now also charge fares.They get support to run them from the big shops,but can now clain BSOG by charging stage carriage fares.A nice way to make money from loss making routes,and attack the commercial routes of others around Eastleigh !

    Given the ugly spat between Bluestar and Velvet a while ago, perhaps Xela are pushing their luck a bit ? Go South Coast now happen to have the same MD that they did during the previous skirmish .

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