Here's a summary of the changes we know about to bus services in Southampton, Eastleigh and Winchester taking place over the weekend of 3rd September. We have changes on Stagecoach, Bluestar, Xelabus and Wheelers. Click the route numbers below to see the new timetables:
Stagecoach 7 Winchester-Sparsholt: The peak hour extension to Kings Somborne is withdrawn but one journey per weekday will run to and from Salisbury.
Stagecoach 46 Winchester-North Baddesley: College journeys are cut meaning that only 3 or 4 journeys will run on weekdays only.
Stagecoach 64 Winchester-Alton: Minor changes.
Stagecoach 66 Winchester-Romsey: Minor changes.
Xelabus X4 Eastleigh-Hedge End: Minor changes and Sunday service introduced.
Xelabus X6/X7 Eastleigh-Hiltingbury: Sunday service cut back to run between Eastleigh & Velmore only. Other minor changes.
Xelabus X8 Eastleigh-Boyatt Wood: Sunday service replaced by new journeys on route X9.
Xelabus X9 Eastleigh-Bishops Waltham: Sunday service introduced between Eastleigh and Colden Common. Other minor changes.
Xelabus X10 Southampton-Bishops Waltham: Minor changes.
Xelabus X11 Southampton-Lordshill North: Minor changes. New timetable not yet available.
Xelabus X15 Eastleigh-Hamble: Minor changes.
Bluestar 6 Southampton-Lymington: Minor changes to running times.
Wheelers W1 Southampton-Romsey: Curtailed to run between Southampton and Romsey on weekdays only. Abbotswood section and Saturday services withdrawn.
Salisbury Reds X7 Southampton-Salisbury: The 1645 journey from Salisbury will revert to terminating at West Wellow instead of continuing to Southampton. Please note that the last bus from Paultons Park back to Southampton will now be at 1628 instead of 1745.
We'll have another post explaining what's happening over in Bournemouth and Salisbury on that same weekend. There are also more changes happening later in September, which we will cover in due course.
Don't forget your at-a-glance guide to all upcoming changes here.
Does anyone know if First will be changing their services in Southampton anytime soon?
ReplyDeleteOf course they will, they always do! Unless they have finally realized that people actually like stability.... Oh no, just spotted that they are going to need less buses as customer numbers dwindle with their new fare rules!
Deleteor hopefully they will leave and bluestar can run the city services
DeletePeople will still use First while complaining about the fare increases,as that`s what the great British public do,moan but not do anything about it.
DeleteBluestar still need competition to keep them on their toes,even if it`s from a joke of a company with crappy buses,miserable drivers,who treat Southampton bus users with contempt by axing bus routes,which are then taken up by Bluestar.
DeleteMaybe First should withdraw city reds 2 and 10. The buses would be better used to serve isolated areas such as Harefield. I can also see reliability improving as a result of less buses clogging up roads in Shirley and Bitterne.
DeleteBluestar could have diverted their 3 route via Harefield on Sundays,but not interested in picking up extra passengers who would be stranded otherwise it seems.
DeleteWow - why all the First hating?
DeleteAs a regular user of both First's and Bluestar's buses (as well as being an enthusiast) I must say that they're both cheap, reliable and frequent.
Living near Woolston, First are my local operator (bar Bluestar's 7) and the buses are clean, well appointed and sporting a beautiful livery - okay they might be Streetlites but until last year Bluestar were still running 10 year old Citaros on their *main* city routes. In my opinion it took a kick up the backside from First for them to up their game!
We should count ourselves lucky as bus users in Southampton that we have two high quality operators. I'm not going to bash either operator as they're both doing a great job, IMHO.
Regarding First's policy for mTickets, this is standard practice throughout the UK and is a well thought out plan - cheaper prices will encourage users on to mTickets quicker, which is better all round because of reduced dwell times.
When contactless is available that will also help with reducing dwell times and should make the network even more reliable. It's great to see progress being made to push users towards digital payments not just in Southampton but across Hampshire.
I agree with you there. Millbrook and Thornhill have far too many buses going to Southampton on the same route. If competition with Bluestar's 18 had to remain, I'm sure First's 2 could be diverted via Oakley Road in Shirley and the 10 via Thornhill Park Road. Doing so would also create new turn-up and go service corridors in those areas which currently see no more than two buses an hour.
DeleteSeriously Andi?Why is there a Bluestar 7?This is due to First shafting people in the Sholing area,by being greedy and withdrawing a direct bus between sholing Butts Road and woolston.Bluestar also stepped in with changes to Bluestar 16,due to First abandoning a link between Townhill Park and Bitterne.It`s all about greed with First and trying to pinch customers from BS18,which is why they introduced their Cityred 2 and 10 ,to go head to head with Bluestar,rather than looking after their traditional routes.Take those rosy specs off!
DeleteBluestar's 7 exists because First decided that their services around Sholing & Peartree Avenue needed changing and Bluestar thought there was an opportunity for themselves - as is their right. Same for First's 12 and Bluestar's 16.
DeleteIt wasn't about First being greedy as they're using the same resources for the area now as they were before! My understanding is that the Bluestar 7 isn't performing too well between Sholing and Woolston, although I would gladly be proven wrong on that matter.
The route picks up a fair few passengers (myself included) heading out of Woolston towards the city centre & railway station but then again so does every other route.
Flipping your argument on its head, why is there a Bluestar 17? Isn't that just to spite First? What about Bluestar suddenly deciding that their 8 was not only commercial but could be operated every 30 mins when only a few months earlier it was a fully supported service? That only happened once First won the contract.
Both operators have been fighting pretty hard against each other - sometimes that results in petty spats such as the examples we have both proffered but mostly what it has achieved are very high frequencies, high quality vehicles and low fares.
First's 10 may well be an attempt at siphoning off passengers from Bluestar's 18 but the CITYREDS 2 is formed from the old routes 10 & 17 - as was documented on this site back in 2012: http://sotonbus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/new-first-network-routes-2-2a-and-x2.html
There certainly aren't any rose tinted spectacles on me - I'm just being a realist with first hand experience of what Southampton's buses are really like!
BS17 isn`t an exact copy of First`s no.3!They differ in route between Aldermoor and Lordshill.They have different frequencies,unlike First`s no.10 and BS18.
DeleteHardly different. In the main its the same. It's not like saying B18 is different for First 10 as BS 18 goes via buller road gyratory. Oh stop didn't BS18 change to match First 10 ?
DeleteTimetables for yellow buses new x37 and x38 services, along with the details of other changes are now on Yellow's site https://www.bybus.co.uk/whats-new-in-september-2017/
ReplyDeleteYellow Buses route R4 is being split into three separate services, two to the west of the RB hospital (R4,R5) and one to the east (R6). Despite this, all R6 buses will become R4 at the RB Hospital meaning it will still be possible to travel from Christchurch to Castlepoint and Kinson on one bus.
DeleteCan I ask a question of Ken on Traveline? Your timetable for Bluestar 6 shows Mon-Fri school holiday departures from Lymingtom at 15:25 and 15:40. The Bluestar timetable makes no mention of the 15:40 - is this a typo on your timetables?
ReplyDeleteKen here. Sorry but Bluestar 6 is not one of mine. I do Dorset plus services going west to east from Dorset, so whilst I have X1 and X2, it is Hampshire's data coordinator that does all of Bluestar. I will drop her an email for you.
Deletesouthern Vectis bring in their winter timetable commencing Sept 3rd.
ReplyDeleteDwindling numbers - fare rules?? Don't look now but didn't Brighton go ahead do flat fare and also unilink
ReplyDeleteSlow day in the GSC Marketing department was it, so the trolls on this site have popped up again. There are no changes to First services in Southampton, whereas GSC/Bluestar appear to be tinkering again with the 6 service, which confusingly is run with buses painted in more or Wilts and Dorset colours.
ReplyDeleteFirst are not wonderful; neither frankly are GSC/Bluestar. I have given up on the unreliable B* service 18 which seems not to run to a timetable; I have reluctantly concluded that the First 10 is (marginally) the more reliable service so I use that.
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DeleteAs someone who works in a professional marketing department, I am incredulous that monitoring the activities of the major competitor does not feature highly in your daily work activity.
DeleteEither you are the tea boy/girl, or you produce the endless self congratulatory press releases about how wonderful GSC is.
As a Thornhill resident, let me tell you they ain't. First's 3 & 10 services are more reliable, have less bunching, and the buses on the 3 are far superior to the dreadful E200MMCs GSC use on the 18.
You would be better employed re-writing the timetable for the 18 (almost all the drivers say it is unworkable). Until that happens, us Thornhill folk will prefer to use First for our daily commute. At least they turn up roughly when they should, and don't run in groups of 3 together.
^ Surely someone who's a "marketing professional" knows that scheduling & other commercial operations happen in the... commercial department!
DeleteI don't work in the bus industry so no, I wouldn't know that! But having been told that, I stand corrected; in some industries, including the one I work in, the boundaries between marketing and commercial are blurred.
DeleteI would still expect the marketing dept to be telling commercial/operations "We're getting a lot of negative feedback re the reliability of the 18 route; you may want to look at the reliability stats to see if some tweaking is required".
Interesting that the initial posting on this mini-thread (from someone who claimed to be in the GSC Marketing department saying that First was not even on their radar) has been deleted by the author. Just about sums up GSC/Bluestar doesn't it. All bluster and promises but no follow-up or delivery.
DeleteSurely anyone with commonsense would realise that the Southampton Bus Blog is hardly going to attract too much attention from "GoAhead Trolls" to warrant such comments.
DeleteIt is not as though Go Ahead is a 2 bus operation where the driver is also the commercial director and customer services manager....
Sounds more like "Jack" wasn't actually anything to do with the GSC/Bluestar marketing team after all, so how it could be "all bluster and promises and no follow up or delivery" doesn't make sense, Jason (28/08 20:59)
DeleteAs a driver I find contactless payment is not quicker but I still like it as a driver. I or the customer don't have to worry about running out of change for £10 and £20 notes. Contactless and cash payments are only quick if the customer knows the procedure (i.e. has no questions) or if the correct destination and fare are given.
ReplyDelete