Don't forget changes to times, routes and route numbers across More's network in Bournemouth and Poole from Saturday 27th May.
In Portsmouth, First Solent's Southsea Coaster returns for another summer season, running along the seafront, from 28th May until 30th September.
From the same day, First Wessex's Portland Coaster also starts for the summer, running between Weymouth and Portland Bill. Details here.
28th May also sees some seasonal changes on the Isle of Wight with Southern Vectis. Details here.
Sunday 4th June sees timetable and route changes across First Wessex. Route 3 gets a weekday off-peak only reprieve for 3 months and an extension to Southill - use it or lose it! People living on routes 9/9A haven't been using those routes enough and they are about to lose them. Details of all changes here and see First Wessex's summer timetable booklet/pdf here.
Looking ahead to the Summer Solstice, those wishing to travel to Stonehenge for the occasion can use Salisbury Reds' special 333 service.
Portsmouth PR3 Park and Ride for Southsea starts Saturday 27th May and runs weekend until 22nd July then daily until 3rd September. Buses will run every 30 minutes between 0930 and 1900 and operated by Xelabus.
ReplyDeleteGreat news the original organisers of the Royal Victoria Bus Rally at Netley from 1983 to 2003 are staging another rally on 16th July to replace for one year the cancelled Alton event. Should be good
ReplyDeleteWonder if there will be the chance to drive a bus around a circuit,as used to be the case at the Netley bus rally.
DeleteMinor timetable changes to Bluestar 13 have been announced on Schooldays only,from after half term.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a simple re-routing to avoid a local school, affecting 3 journeys only.
DeleteJust also found out Xela are running X80 for Lets Rock;
ReplyDeletehave all the buses for Boomtown and Victorious.
Driver of the BS19 said the firm had ordered 30 new buses,with a September delivery date.
ReplyDeleteWhere will the current buses go?
DeleteSome will remain, to allow further expansion later in the year. September may be optimistic for new builds.
DeleteHave you got any idea what the new routes are?
DeleteWould these not be for Unilink they are due to be replaced every 5 years and they were last replaced in 2018. This would then enable the cascade of the existing unilink vehicles to other routes. Did someone not say that some of the displaced single decks from Bournemouth with their new order will move back to Southampton?
DeleteVery interesting these rumoured “extensions”, when the current network has gaps.
DeleteDoes Shirley really need so many buses?
Does Woolston need 12 buses per hour to the hospital?
Why Hedge End Town has only 1 bus per hour to Southampton?
As they are increasing ticket prices, they should also recast some routes:
18 should be reduced to 20 minutes and interwork with new route 18h (also every 20 minutes, following the 18 route to Central station and then diverting to the hospital via Hill Lane and terminate at Lordshill)
19 should be reduced to 20 minutes and interwork with new route 19m (every 20 minutes) and follow current 18 from Shirley to Millbrook.
For the 14 I would extend hourly from Hedge End Station to Hedge End Village Centre as a 3a.
Splitting the 18 and 19 at the Shirley end is a retrograde move - it just messes up the timetable. Better to simply reduce the frequencies of the 17 and 18 to every 10 or 12 minutes. Maybe increase the 7 to every 15 minutes at the same time.
DeleteI agree with extending the 14 to Hedge End Village. One of the 2bph should continue back to Southampton as a 3, while the other should be extended to Bishop’s Waltham via Botley.
Okay, but what about direct buses from Bitterne to the Hospital?
DeleteOr are they waiting for the fall of Xelabus to combine the 10 into the X11?
X11 is a long term contract with SCC
DeleteI think we will be seeing some major changes at Xela as more coaches are delivered
DeleteFor linking Bitterne with the Hospital, I would extend the 16 to Aldermoor via Hill Lane and Winchester Road. That gives Upper Shirley a 15 minute frequency direct to town while opening up faster journey times between the Hospital and City Centre.
Delete@Anoymous 2 June 11:17: What are the rumoured extensions incidentally? Are they documented anywhere?
DeleteI will echo comments about giving the Hill Lane area a regular service. I'd imagine half-hourly would suffice. Perhaps not a good idea to mess up the 17/18/19 but rather run it as a new service, or a cross-town extension of an existing one. The 16 might make sense as it's mostly self-contained (with one or two exceptions).
DeleteI think we are all getting over excited by the rumoured expansion. From what I understand, all we are looking at is frequency improvements on the 19 , plus returning the 9 to a 20 minute routine.
DeleteTime the 11 and 12 went back to their pre-2022 Saturday frequency-every 20 mins combined.
DeleteSorry,that should be every ten minutes combined.
DeleteIt's that Mon-Fri so one might think it would make sense to do that on Sat too. In fact more generally I think it would make sense to run the Mon-Fri off-peak timetable on Sats - easier to remember for one thing.
DeleteBluestar are increasing the price of the £3.50 Southampton city day pass to £3.80 and the £10 weekly Southampton ticket to £12,from June 5.
ReplyDeleteThe firm also limited who can comment on the Facebook post about the price increase.
DeleteWe know it's because they are the only operator covering most of Southampton and their will be further price increases to come since first bus pulled out.
DeleteIt does seem very quick to be increasing prices already - when did first bus go, about 3 months ago? I guess we will need to get used to this until someone else starts competing with bluestar - this is what happens when there is a monopoly
DeleteCome on people, who are you kidding with these silly comments? The Southampton weekly was £16 in 2004. Find me a cheaper weekly ticket anywhere in the UK! It has been far too cheap for far too long, and will be amalgamated into the full Southampton weekly by year end, at last. A new bus costs well over a quarter of a million, the employment cost of a driver is fifty grand a year (with holidays and NI), let alone the fuel bill , engineering and management costs Do you really think it was sustainable at that price? It was a very special offer when it came in at £8, all those year's ago, and had to go at the earliest opportunity, to give a quality and sustainable service into the future. Let's get real please.
DeleteBluestar should have been more honest and upfront to the media,when First quit Southampton in Feb-as Bluestar told the media at the time that there was no plans to increase fares,now that they had the city to themselves,then three months later they are announcing fare rises.Lack of honesty is the issue-not that they need to charge more to make things sustainable.
DeleteYes the poor bus users of Southampton will now start to become regularly ripped off with the prices. Bluestar seemed to be able to keep the business going with low fares, for many years when first bus were there. They are now abusing their position. Really needs to be nationalised as it is so obvious that the monopoly position will mean the customers will suffer.
DeleteI was unaware of this £10 (now £12) fare in all honesty, but I just checked and it's only valid on the intra-city routes (7,10,13,16,17,18,19) plus parallel parts of the 4, 14 and 15. I've always paid £17 for a weekly ticket but that's because my main commuting routes are the 1 and U2 (which are not covered by this ticket).
DeleteSorry, mistake there, it's valid on 7,10,13 and 16-20.
DeleteJust to be very clear, nobody is being ripped off. The gentleman above states that his Southampton weekly costs £17 today, a whole pound more than 19 years ago. 19 years ago, when a gallon of fuel cost a third of what it does today, when wages were less than half of today's rates, and a house cost under 75 grand in many Southampton streets. The limited weekly was a special offer and still is an absolute bargain that Blue star do not have to do. Please get real in your expectations.
DeleteBut will the Southampton Weekley ticket increase from 17 pounds though?
DeleteAnon 27th at 2048
DeleteThere's no way the Southampton weekly was £16 in 2004.
I was at college when I started using the buses in 2002 and it was £8 then, and in 2004-2006 at Uni it was £2 for a return from the outskirts of the city to the centre,
And that was with First when they were the much bugger operator, and they were more expensive than Bluestar back then.
I can't remember exactly how much weekly tickets were back in the day. The ones I do remember were the returns from Citybus days in the early 90s: from Swaythling, Wessex Lane a return was £1.10 in 1989/90; £1.20 in 1990/91 and £1.30 in 1991/92. Cheap by today's standards but quite a rate of inflation!
DeleteAnon 29th at 1218.
DeleteYou are not comparing apples with apples.
I can assure you that Solent Blue Line had a Southampton weekly at £16. I even have a dated photo from that year, with a bus advertising it, parked on Bargate Street! Your recollections of what City bus were offering at that time are not relevant unfortunately, as their network was completely different, as we're their pricing structures.
Good to see the Bluestar fan club back in full effect :-)
DeleteIs it correct that Bluestar will end the 2 pound fare scheme at the end of June?
ReplyDeleteGo ahead have said they will continue with the £2 government backed fare-though the £1 evening fare may vanish-unless the City Council can commit to the scheme beyond June.
DeleteThere's some discussion on the bus section of railforums.co.uk suggesting that they won't - so which is correct?
DeleteIt says on southampton.gov.uk site that Bluestar are continuing to offer the £2 fare till October-so stop listening to gossips and check out the facts available online please.
DeleteThey will continue with the £2 fare until October, when it goes up to £2.50 for another full year. No doubt someone will claim that it's a rip off!
DeleteBluestar need to update their website then
DeleteAny chance of Transpora getting a Mention?
ReplyDeleteThey are very aggressive Reece, and are overstretching themselves already. Would bet that they are not making a penny profit and won't last, but will be happy to be proved wrong.
DeleteWhen I was in Bournemouth yesterday, not a single Transpora bus had a passenger on it
ReplyDeleteToday I saw Transpora service T20 between Hedge End Station and Ageas
ReplyDeleteTime that Bluestar added more evening journeys on BS4 from Romsey,as this evening a double deck was very busy-and passenger numbers have shot up on this route in the evenings recently and deserve a better frequency than every two hours.
ReplyDeleteDoubt it will happen when you have a monopolistic position
DeleteUm, Bluestar have always had a monopolistic position on routes like the 1 and 2 and yet frequencies have increased over the years, and pretty much the first thing they did after gaining a monopolistic position in the city was to double the frequency of the 13. You should also compare frequencies on the main Southern Vectis routes to say 20 years ago.
DeleteI can certainly believe that a monopoly usually means bad news for fares levels, but on frequencies I really don't think it's so clear cut at all.
Fares is an interesting one, as relatively low fares can attract people to the bus over say walking or cycling. With the current reasonable fares, I'm inclined to use the bus even for journeys doable by walking, though if say the weekly Southampton ticket went up a lot from its £17 current price (so something more than just an inflation-based increase) I might be less inclined to buy one. I'd still do some journeys by bus but particularly on days of good weather, might opt for walking instead.
DeleteTo add to that: I would agree that every two hours seems infrequent for the 4. This sounds like a post-Covid cut that was never restored (at a guess); I'm sure it used to be hourly in the evening though can't remember how long ago.
DeleteThe 4 hasn't been hourly in the evening for many many years. Getting on for 20 years ago I would think. And further back than that in earlier Solent Blue Line days there didn't used to be any 4s (15s) in the evenings at all and instead certain 18s extended to Romsey after going around Millbrook.
DeleteAlso the current service level is being slightly mis-characterized as two hourly, it's hourly until 2000 or so and then about every 90 minutes. That's one third of the daytime service level so not exactly unusual for a late evening service.
DeleteI think you will find the 13 frequency is being paid for by Soton Council
DeleteAnd I think you will find that it is not. In fact I know for certain that it is not.
DeleteBluestar 10 is paid for by the city council, but nothing else on the new routes is.
DeleteThink you need to go back to school if you think the 4 is every 90 mins in the evenings,when there is one at 19.25 and the next at 21.10,from Romsey.
DeleteIt is from Romsey at 1925, 2110 and 2245 and from Southampton at 1920, 2020, 2155 and 2330. That is much closer to every 90 minutes than every two hours.
DeleteToday for the Ageas Bowl T20 Match buses used for the shuttles were provided by Transpora as well as 1 bus by First and Xelabus
DeleteThis is very common with Transpora. They sub contract loads of their work, as they are overstretched all over the place. It will bite them eventually.
DeleteNo its Mayflower who run the T20 buses but they have to hire in as they only have 4 buses themselves. Transpora is just one of those they hire in from.
DeleteThat's a form of Franchising
DeleteOnly if its contractual Reece. Otherwise it's sub contracting on a casual basis.
ReplyDeleteBluestar have announced they are taking over the x4 and x4a from Xelabus at the end of July to be numbered 23 and 24. I wonder if 21 and 22 are reserved for the x11 and x12 as they are the historic numbers.
DeleteBluestar taking over Xela X4 https://www.bluestarbus.co.uk/new-bluestar-routes-hedge-end?fbclid=IwAR10rbDdX0a3EuBkpM7RHUsXnARi5bL0ESEIFzcP_RxiYLgc7jkTtS-HXto
ReplyDeleteI see Bluestar are taking over the x4 and x4a from Xelabus from the end of July to be numbered 23 and 24.
ReplyDeleteXelabus to withdraw from local bus services. From 31st July Bluestar will be taking over the X4 and X4A.
ReplyDeleteXelabus will be changing their operation to contracts, private hire and rail replacement from September. More coaches are due to bolster the business which has already seen a major increase in coaching.
Xelabus to withdraw from local bus services. With expansion in coaching Xelabus and Xelacoach will be concentrating far more on private hire, contracts and rail replacement as well as special events. From 31st July, Bluestar will be taking over the X4 and X4A from Xelabus with new routes 23 and 24
ReplyDeleteJust been announced today that Bluestar will be taking on Xelabus routes X4 and X4A as services 24 and 23 respectively.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bluestarbus.co.uk/new-bluestar-routes-hedge-end
I could see this day coming ever since First left Southampton - Doubt it will be very long now until Xelabus gives up the ghost as well.
Just to confirm, Xelabus is moving away from local bus services and concentrating on private hire, rail replacement and special events. Another new Tourismo coach arrived today.
DeleteBluestar to take over running Xelabus`X4
ReplyDeleteBluestar to take over running what is currently Xelabus X4 from the end of July.
ReplyDelete