We start in Fareham, where First have timetable changes to many routes. The main one is that the 10 is cut back from hourly Mon-Sat daytimes to run 2-hourly on weekdays only. All of the details and the new timetables can be found in First's Fareham & Gosport booklet.
Moving on to Winchester, where Stagecoach have new timetables on the following routes from Sunday 2nd September:
- King's City 1 Winnall-Stanmore Sunday daytime frequency doubled to half-hourly between the City Centre and Stanmore, plus extra Mon-Sat evening services to Stanmore replacing the 5A.
- King's City 3 Winchester-Harestock Weekday daytime frequency cut from every 10 mins to every 12 mins.
- King's City 4 Highcliffe-Teg Down All journeys retimed. Last Saturday service from the City Centre to Teg Down will be at 1445 instead of 1730 currently.
- King's City 5 Winchester-Badger Farm More evening services, replacing the 5A. Sunday daytime frequency increased from half-hourly to every 20 mins.
- King's City 7 Winchester-Sparsholt Saturday service halved to every 2 hours. Other minor changes.
- 64 Winchester-Alton Only minor changes.
- 66 Winchester-Romsey More evening journeys. All Sunday services will run via Woodley, no longer alternating with Cupernham.
- 86 Winchester-Whitchurch Saturday service halved to every 2 hours.
- King's City Spring Winchester-Springvale Later last bus from Winchester on Sundays at 1845, compared to 1800 currently.
In and around Southampton, we have the following changes on First and Bluestar:
First City Red three Lordshill-Thornhill Rerouted to serve Town Quay. Saturday daytime frequency cut to every 10 mins. Sunday daytime frequency increased to every 12 minutes.
First City Red 6 Southampton-Hamble Weekday peak journeys will no longer serve Ingleside in Netley. Other minor changes.
First Solent Rangers X4/X5 Southampton-Portsmouth/Gosport Rerouted via Central Bridge instead of Ocean Village. Reduction in early morning an early evening frequencies.
Bluestar 5 Romsey-Boyatt Wood Mon-Sat journeys between Eastleigh and Boyatt Wood will now run every 20/40 mins instead of half-hourly - no idea why, as it won't combine with Stagecoach E1/E2 to give a 20 minute frequency. Other minor changes.
Salisbury Reds X7 Southampton-Salisbury Last Mon-Sat bus from Southampton at 1735 is replaced by journeys at 1715 and 1810. Other minor changes.
Finally, I hope that anyone who went to Southampton Pride today had a good time. When I was growing up in the city, there were no such events to make LGBT people feel welcome and at home. Well there were, but they were only in London, Brighton and Manchester. What a long way we've come. It's good that now even in Southampton, gay people are officially embraced by the council and by sponsoring companies alike. It wasn't always this way. Within living memory, the councils were legally prohibited from 'promoting homosexuality' (as if such a thing were even possible - people either are or aren't) and companies would go out of their way to disassociate themselves from that kind of thing. Gay people were expected to keep quiet and be 'discrete'. Now it's the homophobes that are expected to keep quiet and be 'discrete'. Long may that continue.
Bluestar 5; The running time from Eastleigh to Romsey has been increased by 5 mins each way. The bus leaves Eastleigh at the same time, but returns 10 mins late. Hence the onward short run is 10 mins late and the next layover reduced from 15 mins to 5 mins. (Thus the pattern just still works with the 20/40 compromise.)
ReplyDeleteSadly Bluestar have chosen to time the 5 journeys so that each hour there are 3 buses from Boyatt Wood to Eastleigh within 20 minutes and then nothing for 40 minutes. They could have timed them to make a regular 20 minute service with Stagecoach's E1/E2 hourly service but chose not to. Sadly not untypical of GSC/Bluestar but not very customer/passenger focused. The ghost of Beep Bus clearly lives on in GSC Towers in Poole (or Newcastle or wherever they are run from these days).
DeleteI think you'll find they've chosen to keep the times between Eastleigh and Romsey as similar to the current times as possible. Passengers like stability and on a service that only runs hourly it is never a good idea to disrupt everyone's journey habits by moving the times around unnecessarily.
DeleteAnyway it would be impossible for GSC and Stagecoach to have a coordinated frequency here as the times that would work in one direction of travel would not work in the other.
The Southampton Pride crowd certainly enjoyed the Cheeky Girls.
ReplyDeleteUnion J as well.
DeleteInteresting change of events where todays trend is for Saturday services to be somewhat reduced but in some cases Sunday services to be increased.In somecases Sunday services almost match Saturday frequency.Strange old world
ReplyDeleteSo the 3 change to Town Quay is still going ahead
ReplyDeleteWhy would it not go ahead?-it's been publicised as doing so
ReplyDeleteThe 3 route looking at the map is still doing Ocean Village but instead of going via Orchard Place & Briton St...it'll go via Town Quay.
ReplyDeleteThat correct and as published by First after deciding to still serve Ocen Village
ReplyDeleteA driver told me today that the 3 won't serve Town Quay despite the maps on the new Tinetables stating that this will be happening.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the driver was just getting confused between Town Quay and Ocean Village? Although if that is the case he or she needs to learn the difference sharpish.
DeleteThe text on the website is very clear - "After feedback from customers and stakeholders, we have decided (subject to approval from the Traffic Commissioner) to continue to serve Ocean Village, but then divert to serve Town Quay instead of Orchard Place and Briton Street in both directions." - although I'm surprised they haven't updated it yet - surely they can't still be awaiting traffic commissioner approval.
This has been approved by the traffic commissioner last week.
DeleteWell First had better quickly update their publicity then-As it is in what I have seen,the diagramtic map shown in their publicity is just plain aweful anyway and doesn't realy show in any real form the route between Woolston and City
ReplyDeleteIndeed it does seem to be the case that Stagecoach in Winchester are cutting the frequency on rural and non-core routes on Saturdays (particularly the afternoons, but are increasing late evenings and Sundays commercially on their busier routes. The last 66 from Winchester to Romsey on Saturdays is now 2310 as opposed to 2030 before, returning at 2350 rather than 2110. Also Stanmore and Badger Farm are both greatly improved on Sundays. Overall good news in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe turnaround in fortunes for Winchester city evening services is particularly interesting (and welcome). Only a few years ago Stagecoach were withdrawing services on the same routes as early as 8pm claiming that they couldn't be operated without council subsidy.
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