Southampton City Council has voted for major cuts to all publicly-funded services in the city. Details here.
As the Echo mentions, buses will be affected. In the next few months expect cuts to evening, Sunday and night services as well as to wholly subsidised routes like Bluestar P1, First S1 and Velvet S2.
We'll keep an eye out and will let you know the exact cuts to our city's buses as soon as they are announced.
In other news, Bluestar are having technical problems with Southampton Plus season tickets issued on The Key smartcards. Their advice is to print out proof of payment in order to make sure you'll be allowed on the bus.
Our advice to Bluestar is that they shouldn't be taking passengers' money on a flawed smartcard when they might be refused access to a bus journey they've already paid for. Suddenly First's lack of a smartcard doesn't look as foolish as it did when The Key worked.
The cuts also mean that bus users ,will no longer be able to buy tickets at the tourist information centre,due to its closure in the cuts.
ReplyDeleteBeing new to this site and having an interest in buses I cant but help agree with one of your correspondents that First in Southampton are failing really badly with poor customer use. I observed this mornings peak bus service and all First bus services were woefully supported yet the Bluestar 18 services were on the other hand well used? Is it through poor marketing, high fares or from the recent shake up of services that First have caught a cold!
ReplyDeleteHigher fares and old vehicles(some are`nt even step free!).
ReplyDeleteOnly reason there's step entrance buses around because their doing the new liverys, once there all done, all step entrances shall be gone... also got some new buses due this year... from what ive heard they're getting a few the end this month or next to see how they get on within the city.
DeleteCan you just imagine the management meetings at first? "Anyone got any ideas? I know, lets renumber the whole network, that should confuse the public, oh and reroute them too. Heres another idea, lets repaint all the buses, so they dont know whose bus they are on. Oh and lets start a route thats totally outside our normal operating area, where we have no idea whether it will work, but the opposition have been cutting it back, so thats a great sign. Oh and lets tender for the hythe local buses that are miles from our depot, so that when it breaks down it will take ages to get out there...and make sure we use buses that are far too big for the roads out there, just to make it awkward for our drivers. Even better, lets make up silly names for some routes too, just like they did in the 70s...that died out rapidly so it must have been a great idea. Finally, just as we have thrown off the image of Southampton Corporation, lets paint the name of Southampton on the side of all our buses, to try to annoy group HQ who are desperate to promote what a big group we are. While Bluestar tinker here and there, retaining market share we will change absolutely everything to try to impress everyone." You really couldnt make it up, but First did and are paying a hefty price for it! You just have to wonder how their management have survived for as long as they have....... If ever there was something that needed changing at First, it was the managers, but somehow they missed the most important change that was desperately needed.
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