It’s been a long month, hasn’t it? We have all been happy to see the end of lockdown, only to find it extended in parts, we have seen political issues that we will just call political issues, and I have gone missing. It was not planned, but burnout was inevitable, so a break was needed.
With the relaxation of restrictions, the allowance of being inside a restaurant or gastropub, and being able to visit Ikea has still not been that high on priority list. I have not been able to get out and about the area as much as I like and even when I have – Marc Reddy close your eyes – it has been disappointing.
[This was actually the second time in three weeks that the same buses have been cancelled – the indication of the bus being live is definitely not an indication that the bus is running!]
Something that has become apparent is that there are still a number of issues around staff availability. Perusal of Twitter finds a number of these every day, bus and train operators both appear to still be suffering from higher than normal levels of staff sickness.
In a number of areas, this has indeed meant that service frequencies have been reduced, which we will come to in a minute.
Anyway. There was actually a much smaller range of changes taking place in June, most timetables were just tinkering here and there. Most of the problems seems to have come from staff availability, or operator decisions. So while I get back on the top deck and start posting more meaningful content than a month ago, lets do a quick round-up.
Most Operators are running Less Buses
Over the last 6 weeks, I have seen some applauded announcements of “We are back to Pre-Pandemic” and announcing a full return of services. Without data-mining every bus service, from every bus operator across the South, I would query whether that is actually true.
Where services are low frequency, council supported or in direct competition, this appears from the outside to be the services that are getting the priority when it comes to getting the timetables increased. When services are reasonably well loaded, but within an area of service monopoly, there seems to be reluctance to get services back to what they were.
That being said, the return of later services was welcomed in many areas. I could – not that I can or possibly would – stumble out of the town centre bars at last orders, and still get the last bus home on a Saturday night. Social distancing and advised passenger number limits were relaxed, which has been a benefit for most operators, but leaving a door open for complaints from the passengers.
GoAhead
Across Southampton, the Isle of Wight and Dorset, GoAhead have brought in their Summer timetables.
- The Purbeck Breezer services are running, with new daily connections to Monkey World and the Bovington Tank Museum.
- The Isle of Wight Coasters and Breezers return.
- The New Forest Tour runs with three different routes. Of note though, closed-top buses are often being substituted in.
On the Isle of Wight; night buses returned on a Friday and Saturday night – the first I think I have seen across the region(?) – at the start of June. Normal timetables were largely re-introduced back in April.
In Southampton, UniLink and most Bluestar services returned to a normal timetable in April, but I get the feeling that early morning and late evening services on some routes are still reduced and overnight services for the weekend are not back yet. This is not surprising of course as nightclubs are not yet open.
Some commenters on the social media-sphere have pointed out that there appears to be an increase in service changes due to ‘a problem with the bus.’ Maybe where additional schools and duplicates have been in place for social distancing; that when the inevitable issue occurs, it is harder to immediately provide a replacement.
Updated to add: morebus are suggesting that their night buses might return in September:
In Bournemouth and Poole, morebus services mostly returned to a normal timetable in April.
First Group
FirstGroup generally have their dedicated COVID page kept up to date in such a way, that you can’t keep tabs on what changed historically. Easy on the eye for regular users, less helpful for enthusiasts who have taken a few weeks off.
Now, it would not be fair of me to comment on social media rumours, so I would just suggest that the reduced services in operation are just ‘operational difficulties.’
- Across First Solent, most services are running a reduced frequency.
- Examples of this are the Eclipse, running every 20 minutes on each route vice every 10 to 12, and the 9/9a becoming a combined frequency of every 25 minutes (!)
- but on the the other side of the coin the 3 (Fareham – Paulsgrove – Cosham – Portsmouth – Southsea) and the co-joined 1 (Southsea – Fratton Park – City – Gunwharf) are back to their 10 minute frequency.
- First Solent is still not running the 17 between Southsea and Ocean Park Retail Park
- In Southampton, City Reds are also running a reduced service on un-contested routes, but a normal service on services like the City Red 3.
- In Weymouth, First Wessex services seem to be largely similar to previous summers. I have noted though that there has been occasional reductions in services, again due to ‘operational difficulties.’
Stagecoach South
Stagecoach South have continued to operate a reduced service across most of it’s estate. They have re-introduced late evening services alongside our other operators in the region, albeit not as late as they used to be. I can not complain about that though, as I can’t with other operators, because nightclubs and later night drinking is still not a thing.
- In mid-July, Portsmouth services 21, 23 and 39 will see an increase to near pre-pandemic level.
- In Winchester, additional evening services are being trialled between the City Centre and the South Park and Ride, via the Royal Hampshire Hospital.
- In Winchester as well, the very nice King’s City brand and livery has now been dropped, in favour of the new corporate look.
Xelabus
The last of the main operators across our region to (according to it’s website) still be enforcing an Exact Fare Policy with no change given, Xelabus is also the most difficult of the companies to assess.
They have very little regard for their website, rarely ensure that it is up-to-date or accurate, and so we find things like:
Most Xelabus services are now back to their pre-COVID levels though. The one notable exception is the X11 between Southampton and Lords Hill.
Southampton City Council withdrew subsidy for this service at the start of the year, so Xelabus took on the route with full financial risk, but at the expense of not running the service on Saturdays.
Yellow Buses
As well as taking on their new work with both MegaBus and Golden Tours, Yellow Buses have returned to a largely pre-COVID timetable. The main exception is the night bus services which have a few 1N’s in the late evening, but nothing like when the nightclubs were open.
We should be back to Normal Service too!
Although the Hampshire Bus Blog was only started in the pandemic, it was quite heavy going to keep up with all the changes that were sometimes every few weeks. There definitely was more work to it than I imagined and the continuation of the various stages led to a little bit of burnout; work is meant to do that, not a hobby!
As we appear to be getting back to normal I am hoping to be able to get out and about across the region for pleasure rather than business. Don’t worry, I am not about to flood the Twitter feed with pictures of every single bus I see.
The only thing that isn’t pre-pandemic at Bluestar and Unilink is the Quayconnect shuttle, which is still hourly instead of half hourly, and the U1N weekend night bus. Everything else is back to normal.
Thanks for letting me know George. A shame WordPress hid your comment away from me for so long.