With the schools going back imminently, most bus operators are tweaking their networks to best fulfil their schools obligations. Yellow buses are also introducing new express services as well as extending some others beyond the end of their season.
In some parts of the area, Venturer (thanks for the heads up) pointed out that schools services run under contract have become wholesale packages granted to a single operator. While I can not see evidence of that in Bournemouth and Poole, Yellow Buses are certainly running what appears to be more closed door services this year.
If you are heading to a school in the Bournemouth or Poole areas, or you are a parent who will be throwing your children, kicking and screaming onto a school bus this year, Yellow Buses helpfully have a dedicated page for that.
[The editor can not condone the throwing of children onto school buses, we must think about the poor drivers they might hit.]
Core Network Changes – September 5th
Most Yellow Buses core network services have some sort of change coming up, as well as new complementing services in some areas.
- Service 1 will terminate every other bus at Tuckton Bridge rather than running to the Two Rivers Centre Monday to Saturday. This splits the route up into a number of different origin and destination options:
- Poole to Christchurch
- Poole to Tuckton
- Bournemouth to Christchurch
- Bournemouth to Tuckton
[Good Luck]
- Service 3 will be reduced from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes in the off-peak; but from Bournemouth will now be complimented by the new:
- New Service 3x between Bournemouth, Bournemouth Railway Station and the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. This will run direct from the Railway Station to the Hospital rather than through Charminster and most weekday services will extend to Castlepoint.
- Service 4a – which has had a number of changes over the last 18 months – is changing again. The route will once again be reduced to run only between Bournemouth and Kinson, and will now only run 6 times a day instead of every 30 minutes.
- Service 5 and 5a will increase it’s Saturday service to run every 10 minutes (every 20 minutes each way through Howe)
- Service 6 has some changes which sees the section of route between Bournemouth and Wallisdown will be increased to run every 15 minutes.
For residents of Canford Bottom, the hourly loop around the area has been withdrawn with all buses (except the Queen Elizabeth School extension) terminating at Wimbourne Square.
Buster Continues into the Autumn
The summer open top bus services branded as Buster’s Beach Bus will continue their season through to the October half-term. Whether we get a September heat wave or not, I am sure we will wait to see, but at the same time:
- Buster Route 11 between Bournemouth Pier – Hengistbury Head and Mudeford will run every 2 hours on weekdays, hourly at the weekends, until the end of September then reduce it’s service.
- Buster Route 12 between Alum Chine, Boscombe Pier and Hengistbury Head will run hourly every day until the end of October.
- The New Forest Buster will finish for the season after service on 5th September.