Monday 28 November 2016

Biggest ever Boxing Day service

Some of our local bus operators have started telling us what kind of amended service they'll be running over the Christmas and New Year period.

Full marks to Go South Coast (that's Bluestar, More and Salisbury Reds to most of us) and to Xelabus, who have already revealed their full plans, enabling passengers to plan well ahead. Use these links for details:

Bluestar
More
Salisbury Reds
Xelabus


The big story is that Bluestar will be providing a full Sunday service on all routes apart from the 6 on Boxing Day rather than the usual skeleton timetable.


Unilink will be running a Boxing Day service for the first time ever: a half-hourly U1. See the combined Bluestar/Unilink Xmas & New Year bus guide here.

Over in Bournemouth & Poole, More intend to also run a Sunday service on most routes on Boxing Day, but not all. Check the full list here.

Most of us are used to no buses on Christmas Day itself, but More have run routes M1 and M2 in the past and intend to do so again this year, with a special timetable, premium fares and route extensions to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital and to Christchurch - they'll be our region's only working bus routes on Christmas Day.

Stagecoach, Yellow Buses and Wheelers haven't yet announced their plans. Neither have First, although they have found time to put their fares up in both Southampton and Portsmouth.

As more plans are announced, we'll be linking to them all from our 'Changes On The Way' page.



14 comments:

  1. Is there any reason why Bournemouth/Poole and also the Isle of Wight have buses on Christmas Day but not Southampton?

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    1. The IOW is a bit of a special case where low car ownership means they've had a Christmas day service for a great number of years. The only route that approaches the usage of Bournemouth's M1/M2 is probably the 18 - I must admit I thought we might see that this year.

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  2. What`s taking First Southampton so long?Considering First Bristol,Aberdeen,Glasgow etc,have all issued their Christmas times already,i`m not sure why Southampton is so slow.

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  3. Its probably because they are so busy planning their changes for February, that they have low priority on Christmas!

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    1. what are the changes for February ?

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    2. Could someone actually give a good idea as to what these changes are, and more important than that, evidence (beyond "some person told it to this person who told me")?

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  4. wonder if they`ll actually alter services for Easter Sunday,or do they want loads of empty buses ,due to all the large stores being shut Easter Sunday,cause they seem too lazy to change services for the day!

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    1. Now if they did that which is the right commercial decision there would be keyboard warriors on here waxing lyrical and about poor level of service etc

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  5. So First have announced they will run a Sunday service on wed28-Fri30 Dec.That means those in Sholing and Harefield are screwed then.Seems a very odd move ,as usually it`s a Saturday service.

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    1. They must have taken the Christmas times down again,as I can`t find them now,although they were there earlier this evening.

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    2. It is a Saturday Service on the 28-30th.
      And a Sunday Service on the 27th and 2nd with some 9 and 13 journeys too.

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  6. So First are going to run the 9 and 13 on the two Christmas/New years bank holidays,i wonder if this is something that occurs EVERY bank holiday,in the Feb changes.

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    1. Wouldn't have thought so. However what are the changes then ? Is there some sort of reference you can point us to or is it just jackanory

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  7. Massive changes to Yellow Buses according to the Bournemouth Daily Echo with eight colour coded lines to be introduced with a simplified network stretching out as far as Mudeford, Verwood and Ringwood.

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