Saturday 18 October 2014

13 cut back from Central Station / Romsey revamp

From this, in First's timetable booklet...

First 13 is being cut back from Monday 27th October, so that it will no longer serve Central Station. Merry Oak and Harefield will therefore lose their direct link to Central Station, but can still use the 13 to catch the train from Woolston, or change at Woolston to the three, which still runs through to Central Station. Details here and new timetable here.

...to this, courtesy of Traveline.

From the same day, Stagecoach is revamping its routes in Romsey. The 32 and 33 will disappear and be replaced with an enhanced 66 running all the way to Winchester every half hour Mon-Sat daytimes. The Cupernham parts of the 32 and 33 routes will be covered by alternate journeys on the new 66. The new timetable is buried on Stagecoach's website, but can be found on Traveline. The 36 is not affected.

The 66's new route in Romsey, according to Traveline. So that's clear, then. It's a bit easier to understand on Stagecoach's website.

As many commenters on this blog have already remarked, Xelabus have a new website and it is a huge improvement on what they had before. It is now far simpler and easier to use and features route maps.

Don't forget that Gardbus 139, until now a Sunday-only service, now also runs on Saturdays.

18 comments:

  1. Slight correction needed as the 12 does not serve Woolston-As shown what does anyone make of the new 66 route map?

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  2. Thanks Anon. I've removed the incorrect reference to the 12.

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  3. When First a few months ago changed the 13 and made it terminate on the south side of Central Station,I did suggest to them that they would get problems in timekeeping between West Quay and the Central Station and on return back to Vincent's Walk-They dismissed this,but in the short period of operation have found this to be so,and now cut the service back-The problem here is that many people have used it to alight at Asda and the Central Station and board for the return at the Central Station,but the Civic Centre stop has not been so popular-This has now caused unnecessary complaints at the proposed withdrawel of this section,where in the first place if it had just run between City and Harefield and return people would have just got use to it-All this regular tinkering around with bits of route does them no favours in their relationship with their customers-PAC

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  4. It's about time PAC became an operator I would of thought. You would make a fortune !

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  5. Would not like to be an operator,and no fortune to be made today in bus operation,as we can see in lots of areas it's a dying industry which is regretable,but a sign of the times-PAC

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  6. With regards to route 66, the timetable is available on the website it just requires some digging around to find.

    It has a very good route map with detailed information to help demystify it!

    http://www.stagecoachbus.com/getTimetable.ashx?code=XPAO066&dir=INBOUND&date=12%2f11%2f2014

    It's also worth pointing out that route 66 will operate on Sundays and Public Holidays, once again, with the new timetable.

    Andi

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  7. @PAC: To be fair, I would pretty much suggest that buses dying is an inevitable consequence of most bus operators being generally terrible. I mean, rail is generally considered quite bad at giving information to the general public, but look at how much info you can find! Seamless journey planning across the whole country, integrated and operator-agnositc ticketing, high-quality maps that include all operators, detailed information for every station in the country, the list goes on. If this is considered poor, how bad must bus operators be when most of them can't even manage that?

    In my opinion, since the industry doesn't seem to be able to manage this itself, we need some sort of regulation providing the following:
    * Integrated ticketing at least between bus operators and preferably between other modes of transport too, across the country
    * Route maps and journey planners that don't suck for every operator, both within a given area and for the whole country.
    * Some obvious way of telling where you are when you're on an unfamiliar route. Interactive maps in the bus of the following stops would be nice (I've seen this in Poland), but failing that, a clear display with the current stop along with prominently-displayed London Underground-style route maps including *all* stops.

    I'd suggest if these were implemented, bus usage would be much greater than it is right now.

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    1. I agree with your observations-It hurts me deeply to see things going the way they are-When on Sundays over the last months each area of the country is given a score on British Bus Bugle as to how a particular area operates bus wise,as to information etc,some are just plain awful and regulation to govern this is now needed-In Southampton we have 6 operators two of which it's easy to obtain timetables,the others very difficult or not at all-At one of the operators also More timetable books can be obtained as can Southern Vectis but nothing for Salisbury Reds area-At the other one Fareham and Gosport area timetable book is on hand but not Portsmouth-Unless you are now on line the others are very difficult to obtain in printed version-On bus stops within Southampton conflicting information exists on many,as does map information on large screens dotted round the city centre-The council I believe try to update these at least once a year,but just as quick as they update bus companies change their routes and frequencies again,so in some cases they are not much use-At least with railways they tend to make just one major change a year, and in general all operators make the changes to their services at the same time-As you state bus usage would be much higher if certain improvements were implemented-Nice too with railways as an example, where if you arrive in Southampton from Bursledon and want to continue to Winchester, the least you have to do is possibaly change platforms,but if you arrive by bus from Bursledon and want to continue to Winchester you have to walk the streets to find where you depart from-PAC

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  8. The 66 used to run half hourly when the 'rail-link' part was funded by SWT, this ended a few years ago and the service stopped going past Romsey station. I see that with this new timetable 1 bus per hour will now go past the station again and effectively reverse this cut that was the subject of protests at the time.

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  9. Actually that's not the case at all with the new timetable. For a start the map is slightly confusing as it shows three route variations (including via the station) but the accompanying information only mentions two.

    The timetable is of little help as the station is not shown as a timing point in any case, but for once Traveline comes to the rescue with its "all stops" timetable - but the service via the station only operates 3 times a day during weekday peak hours, so nothing to get excited about.

    However, while the regular route runs just under half a mile from the station, the new times appear to allow plenty of connection time (including walking and allowing for slightly late trains, like this morning).

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    1. IIRC I gave up trying to interpret the Stagecoach timetable and resorted to deciphering the Traveline one. Obviously I should have just clicked the all stops button, in my defence however I find that can be far from reliable at times.

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  10. Why does there seem to be an aversion at Stagecoach to using to using XXA, XXB etc.? It doesn't really help knowing that you need to get a 66 to your destination only to find out you're on the wrong 66 and it doesn't go there. Like the 64 I never understood why they don't call the one that runs around Alton 64A or the Guildford one X64 (as it used to be, with the Itchen Valley version the 64 - now part of the 67). It wouldn't surprise me to find that someone intending to go 5 mins round back end of Alton has found themselves zooming up the A31 instead.

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    1. I agree there should be a 66 and 66A but disagree with the 64. It's clearly shown on the destination whether it's a "64 Alton Manor Estate" or "64 Alton for Guildford".

      Plus, they can always ask the driver when they board if they're really unsure.

      Andi

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  11. The improvements to the 66 are very welcome but I have to say that the information is as clear as mud. From the timing points listed in the timetable it is simply not possible to work out which route each journey will take between them.

    I would have expected better from Stagecoach.

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    1. Quite agree with you-I think they think we are all mind readers-Whilst we as bus observers might work out what is happening,the general public most ordinary people will not-It's so sad really,here we have a major inprovement but to ordinary travellers they are left confused-What the hell is the matter with the operator in such poor information provided-Not what I would expect from Stagecoach in this instance-PAC

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    2. The new timetable is on the bus stop at Hursley.
      When you look at the times and then look at the detailed map above everything becomes clear. The only criticism that I can see, is the map is a bit on the small size for pensioners with failing eye sight.

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  12. Interesting to note that Stagecoach are also offering (limited) free travel on the 66 until end of Nov. However I have yet to see this advertised anywhere else.


    "To celebrate the introduction of these improvements, we are pleased to announce a number of free travel promotions throughout November.

    Passengers travelling within Romsey can use the 66 for free from Sunday 2 November to Saturday 8 November.
    Anyone can travel on route 66 for free in the evening (after 7pm) and all day Sunday from 2 November - 31 November 2014 (inclusive)."

    http://www.stagecoachbus.com/tis-service-update-details.aspx?id=3247


    I'm still not sure why they have chosen to expand the service, to get more punters - yes, but the Winchester network is pretty static and doesn't get much tinkering done to it. The last major changes being the nonsense with the 67 and the complete review of Winchester services which Coincided with the last sweeping cuts to local subsidy's. Neither of which can be said to changes designed to get more bums on seats.

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    1. I believe there is some developer funding from the Abbotswood development

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