Not a company to have changes to their timetable, a rare announcement from Yellow Buses has made a few timetable changes to their services in the Bournemouth area.
Now – I know that the bus operators have had staffing problems, all of them have, all over the country. The thing is, Yellow Buses have been insubordinately stable and I don’t know whether that is because they have underpromised to overdeliver, or because they simply have a better level of staff rapport and reliability.
Bus Stop Changes
Changes are being made though and they are…. Well they are actually relatively small. The main change that they are making is where the buses are actually going to be stopping around Bournemouth Square. These changes are in part restoring services to stops which were in use pre-pandemic.
Services 3 and 3x will both move from Stand S to Stand N outside of the NatWest Bank on Gervis Place. This will be neighbours with service 5 on Stand M which does not move, but shares routes along Charminster Road.
Services 4 and 6 will no longer start in Westover Road, but will move from Stand 1 to Stand S on Gervis Place. Using the map helpfully included in the Yellow Buses news page about it all, let’s make it obviously clear:
Timetable changes
Service 1 & 1b
The biggest change within the Bournemouth central area involve the merging of routes 1 and 1b.
- The ‘short’ route 1 services to Tuckton Bridge will cease
- The 1 and 1b services will be combined to offer a bus every 10 minutes on six days of the week and every 20 minutes on Sundays.
- Weekend services on route 1b will stop serving Mudeford
You can download the new service 1 & 1b timetable here.
Service 21 – cancelled
Outside of the town centre, Yellow Buses will be cancelling it’s route 21. This community service running between Christchurch, Burton and Bransgore was started back in late 2019 when Southbourne Buses (now known as Southampton Mini Link) cancelled it’s C1 service (covered by the much better – but now missing in action – Southampton Bus Update) after just six months of service.
According to Yellow Buses, the service was initially a success and the handful of round trips run everyday was looking hopeful, before the pandemic hit.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council decided not to work with Yellow Buses to further develop the service though, despite the route not having any previous financial support. A contract tender was awarded to morebus instead for a new route 23.
Minor changes – 3x & 6
Minor changes are also going to affect afternoon journeys on express service 3x between Bournemouth and the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, and an additional morning journey on route 6 between Bearwood and Wimborne.
The thing is….
Compared to some of the changes that we have seen in the Hampshire and Dorset area, the loss of 2 buses an hour on a truncated section of service 1 is not a big loss. Yes, it might mean a few more minutes wait for a bus, bus for the majority of bus users, the Concessionary Pass holding community, it is still a turn-up-and-go offering between Christchurch and Bournemouth.
For an “expensive and inflexible bus company”….
….they seem to have a stable and consistent outlook on the services people want.