Three: Mon-Sat daytime frequency increased to every 7/8 minutes. Every 20 mins Mon-Sat evenings. Last buses will run later.
4/4A/X4: rerouted to serve Wrights Hill. Minor timing changes.
5: Sunday service withdrawn. Mon-Sat daytime service cut to hourly.
7: Minor timing changes.
8/8A: Merged into one route with just two buses an hour. New one way loop around Hedge End. Rerouted to serve Peartree and Woolston.
9: Will no longer serve the stops on Bullar Road Gyratory. Minor timing changes.
12: Mon-Sat daytime frequency increased to every 15 minutes. Rerouted to serve Northam instead of Peartree and Woolston. Also rerouted to serve Wakefield Road.
13: Minor timing changes.
R1: Withdrawn, leaving Jurds Lake Way unserved once again.
The full timetables have not yet been released. We'll let you know as soon as they are out.
In other news, Southampton City Council have issued some London-style spider maps for major locations in the city. See them here (scroll down to 'downloadable documents'), but bear in mind that First's changes will render most of them already obsolete as of 1st June. Here's a glimpse of the Bitterne one:
From June the Southampton City Council all operators bus map just issued for 2014 will also be of no use either. It's now obvious with the June changes that the 5 is at the next change after June doomed just like the 10 was,the taking out of the 9 to not serve the Gyratory Road at Bullar Road is just plain stupid,Sholing Butts Road area will soon have no service at all,Hedge End Centre area suffers,although it should do Velvets A the world of good should Velvet survive. The switching of routes between City and Bitterne between 8 and 12 is another crazy step as Townhill Park for years and years has been connected with Woolston. I note the top brass state that the changes this time are due to travel pattern changes by the public and are made to reflect this.(mind you a similar statement was made at the last change).Well by the comments so far on their facebook,their customers don't seem to agree. I see more changes to these changes later on in the year. PAC
ReplyDeleteHere we go again!even more First buses to trundle along Shirley road,or should that be to bring it to a standstill.
ReplyDeleteUnpopular changes yet again from First, but follow their thinking for a minute..... Bluestar has an established and settled network of routes, and apart from their defence of the waterside, they have done nothing to react to Firsts attacks, particularly on the 2. So First ramp up the attack on Shirley/ Lordshill/ Thornhill and hope that Bluestar keep pretending that its not hurting.Now, if Bluestar were to launch a red 17, covering the old corporation 17 route, with a 5 minute frequency.... Oh no, Bluestar dont do radical! They just sit on their laurals. Mmmmm?
ReplyDeleteBluestar don't need to ramp up any attack,as as you state they have a nice settled network, and potential passengers note that this network is stable and that's why they use it.It's quite obvious that in someway the 12 will be rerouted via Northam instead of Woolston in an attempt by First to nick a few passengers off the Bluestar 18 that would travel from the Bitterne area to somewhere in Shirley. However Bluestar do not have to react to this because at present even with First 8/8A/9 running a similar route between Bitterne and City and return most ignore this and use the Bluestar 18. The suggestion to put even more buses along Shirley Road and Shirley High Street is ridiculous,as where now at present there are so many in each direction,the bus companies are now causing most of the traffic jams during the day in Shirley. Also both Millbrook and Thornhill are grossly at present over bused because of this competition nonsense, at the detroment to other areas of Southampton. The change on 1st june 2014 by Firstbus will I'm sure recieve a further change later on again in 2014 because Firstbus planners just can't get the act together, and will loose them more passengers than they will gain. As an example of complete stupidity Woolston has been connected to Townhill Park ever since old City Transport days and now they at the change will break the connection in rerouting via Northam. In Hedge End they have now thrown an olive branch to Velvet, who must be over the moon with their changes.We can also see the 5 will recieve the death axe particularly soon, with rerouting the 4/4A/X4 to now serve Wright's Hill, which will weaken the 5 even further. PAC
ReplyDeleteMr PAC you seem to have a time lapse - it is not old City Transport days - it is some 28 years later and believe it or not the world has probably moved on since then !
DeleteI'm well aware that the world has moved on and peoples travelling habbits change, but they don't change to the extremes that Firstbus implement in keep rerouting. PAC
DeleteWhat makes you so qualified to call that ?
DeleteSorry, I did not realise on this bus blog you had to be qualified to express an own personel opinion,I thought it was open for all who use the site to have a view of what's happening at present or likely too in the future.We all have different views as to a subject,and long may this be so,wether we agree with each other or not. PAC
DeleteDoes anyone care about the 5 virtually disapearing,on the Basset side of the city?Theres already an excellent Unilink service people can use instead!
ReplyDeleteYes, and who operates Unilink? Blue Star!
DeleteWhat a mess the lovely service 67 has been turned into from 12th May 2014 with Velvet pulling out of the contract,which is understandable as they try to consolidate their operating area. On the Velvet website you can now view the new timetable, plus a list of what you can and what you can't do where there will now be two operators. Nothing here to encourage anyone wanting to leave their car at home for through travel between Winchester and Petersfield. But with funding cuts I suspect we will see more of this arrangement on many other routes in Hampshire in the future. PAC
ReplyDeleteWould appear to be a nasty piece of ransom-holding there by Stagecoach. Exactly the kind of thing that brings our industry into total disrepute, and in all honesty the sort of thing I thought Stagecoach had grown out of about 20 years ago.
DeleteFor those who don't know the area, the terminus of this so-called "commercial" service, where everyone will be forced to change buses and pay a second fare, comprises of a crossroads, a petrol station and a pub. And literally nothing else.
If Stagecoach do not want to run their commercial service any further then what's the problem? They probably gambled that they'd get the HCC contract & lost. Xela could easily run a commercial section in competition if they wanted too. That is what deregulation is all about is it not?
DeleteThe West Meon Hut (Junc A272 & A32)? Whilst that might be okey for the occasional passenger who wishes to board or alight, is it not going tpo be dangerous to have potentially 5 - 10 passengers waiting for connections several times a day on this busy junction in no mans land?
Deletehttp://goo.gl/maps/N89iq
Stagecoach's apparently commercial decision to only run as far as West Meon Hut seems a little bizarre, to say the least. However, even without having to change buses, service 67 does little to encourage people to leave their cars at home, because despite being a main route between a city and a town less than 20 miles apart, it remains inconvenient to use (operating only every 2 or 3 hours with no evening or Sunday journeys) and is also uncompetitively indirect (taking at least an extra 30 minutes or 80% longer than the equivalent average car journey).
ReplyDeleteFull credit to Velvet though for putting up on their website a very good information explanation re service 67. However as Xelabus have got the 67 from HCC I expect the timetable will vary somewhat as probably the same issues that affected Velvet like breakdowns will affect Xela. As for changing buses at West Meon - that is not going to encourage travel is it?!!! Solent Travelcard or a car anyone?
ReplyDeleteYes thanks to Velvet for the excelent information supplied on their website when the service changes hands.The ticket availability information is most welcome, and clearly defines as to what will or will not be available between the two new operators. As someone else has commentated the change over point at West Meon Hut to me is rather like being in the middle of a desert, and I agree with Anonymous 28 April 2014 23:03 in their comments. I note as I write, no information as yet on the Xelabus website. PAC
DeleteSince my posting this morning, I note interesting news now posted on the Xelabus website. PAC
DeleteMaybe Xela don't realise they are running it yet!
DeleteI see the National Park are now funding journeys on Sundays as well, which to my knowledge haven't run before - I would say that's a pretty big silver lining to this mess.
DeleteWonder what the odds are for trusty X-Bus to pull out of this deal at short notice? What a shambles,and very sad really.
ReplyDeleteOn this one occasion I would not blame them if they did.
DeleteAnd from looking at the timetable it looks like both operators will have some horrendous inefficiency and dead mileage to link the dis-jointed trips. It looks like there even might be some occasions when a Xela dead run will need to shadow a Stagecoach service trip, which itself will then return dead in the other direction. As the saying goes, what a way to run a railway!
Shall we start a sweepstakes? The person who draws the 1 month ticket will be smiling methinks! :-)
Deletethe joys of the 1985 act!
DeleteIndeed,and the electorate at the time voted in their droves for privatisation which was part of the manifesto of the party that were elected. Perhaps it's rather apt that those who in certain areas voted the way they did, now suffer the loss of their bus services and inconvienience caused by the way bus companies now have too, in some instances, act. PAC
DeleteJust viewed the new First timetables and theres going to be a half -hourly eve service to Bitterne on route 12 and sun eve buses to Bitterne. and extra eve buses to Sholing ,on the no.9.Why did`nt they do that before,instead of saying it that there was a lack of demand?
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious at First that their planners are useless in some instances.You will also note the section of 12 between Lordshill and Aldermoor is reconnected all day on Sundays after they withdrew it at the last change.You will note they tell you the service is withdrawn as it's not commercially viable,then at the next change in many instances it reappears again.You may have also noticed on the 11 that the 20 minute evening service introduced in the last change after 1900 Mondays to Saturdays has also been modified,but no mention of this in their statement for the June changes.As for Merryoak there is no mention in their timetables shown that Sundays between Bitterne and Woolston the 8 will divert to serve this area,although the statement about the changes does. With hardly anyone about in the evenings,except for Fridays and Saturdays, I find all these extra buses being put on service 3 evenings incredible,and if that's commercially viable,I have my doubts.However with what they have done as from June, I have no doubt that later in the year it will be revised again.-PAC
DeletePAC - I have to disagree; I don't believe that First's planners are incompetent. They are almost certainly merely working within the economic constraints they are set by managment. The reason the 12 was shortened to Aldermoor was almost certainly that another bus would have been needed to maintain the service; this would have changed the financial dynamics of the service. The change in the 12 route has given them the opportunity to restore the service which is good news and should surely not be taken as an opportunity to call people you have never met incompetent when you have no ideas what parameters they are working within.
DeleteIt was not commercially viable to add another bus and its costs on to the service; as the additional bus is no longer required due to the route change between Bitterne and City Centre, the extension to Lordshill becomes affordable. Simples!
I don't think the 11 evening timetable is changing as far as I can see.
First clearly think the 3 warrants a higher frequency and they have all the facts at their disposal. Just rejoice that busy services in Southampton are being improved and that the council have stopped wasting money on the R1.
I know its all about opinions but I think your comments about incompetence are a little out of order.
Well think what you want, but this continual change does nothing for public confidence. Were sick to death in Southampton of continual rerouting of services by First bus planners because it suits them so everthing fits in neatly.It's quite obvious that the 12 route is being rerouted as you say because at the last change it was not possible on Sunday to run all day to Aldermoor as it would have involved another bus being added to the system.The increase of evening frequencies on some routes is barmy,as most of the week they run near empty as it is,and if this is commercially viable, I would like to know how they have reached this decision just months after reducing the frequency on the evening 12. As for the 11 if you look at the new timetable the journeys after 2200 hours have been reduced Monday to Saturday, that's within months of adding extra frequency.I suspect after a period of operation the 3 will suffer the same fate. If they got it more or less right in the first place many moons ago, we would not have to keep suffering this continual change. Bluestar seem to have got things more or less right over a period of time,although even they have change,which in most cases is not so severe as First. As you state we should rejoice in improvements,and I certainly do,as long as they last when they improve,but all seems to be in some cases shortlived. As you state we all have our own view and I thank you for stating to me your opinion on my comments,and I hope you are right and I'm proved to be wrong.At least we agree on one issue that the council have stopped wasting money on the R1. Let's see what changes next time, as I'm sure it will,and see what survives and what doen't. regards PAC.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI speak as an occasional contributor and frequent reader of this blog, in expressing a hope that Anon @ 1856 withdraws his/her remarks or be treated with contempt. Such personal attacks are out of order.
ReplyDeleteI certainly do not agree with all opinions expressed by PAC, but they are always expressed constructively, passionately and with clear evidence of an attempt to understand the issues. The exchange of such opinions is surely what a forum such as this is all about.
PAC also earns great respect from me for not entirely hiding behind the cloak of 'Anonymous'.
More power to his keyboard!
I agree with Phil. The comment at 1856 adds nothing to the discussion and has therefore been removed. Anon, if you disagree with what PAC says, then please argue back with a valid, relevant point.
ReplyDelete