It must have been hiding on the news page and not prominent on the front page, because changes to Bluestar announced more than 2 weeks ago have been missed! Due to the ongoing driver shortages and pandemic, GoAhead Group have announced more changes to the Southampton brand, taking effect on Tuesday 4th January. Now ironically, looking back through the Bluestar Twitter feed, they have not been announcing these changes either. It does make me wonder if this announcement was backdated on the website….
This is a fairly network wide reduction, a reduction of approximately 7 or 8 buses every hours leaving or running through Southampton city centre. As of yet, there are not even timetables linked in the news page article, so I am having to access each timetable in turn and manipulate the dates to get them.
Changes from 04 January
Bluestar 1 to Chandlers Ford, Badger Farm and Winchester:
* Reduced from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes weekday daytimes
* Reduced from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes Saturday daytimes
Bluestar 2 to Eastleigh and Fair Oak:
* Reduced from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes weekday daytimes
* Reduced from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes Saturday daytimes
Bluestar 4 Permenant Change to Romsey
* The 07:55 from Southampton has more running time, arriving 5 minutes later in Romsey on Schooldays
* This bus will depart Southampton at 08:00 on non-schooldays
* The 09:00 from Romsey will run 5 minutes later throughout on weekdays
Bluestar 8 & 9 to Totton, Hythe, Calshot and Fawley:
* All Bluestar 8 services will terminate and restart at Hythe Pier
* Bluestar 9 journeys to Fawley will continue to Calshot every day
* As a result, the timetable has fully changed
Bluestar 11 and 12 to Totton and Calmore
* Each route to West Totton and Calmore will be reduced from every 20 to every 30 minutes Monday to Saturday daytime
* This offers a combined frequency of every 15 minutes between Southampton and Totton Precinct
Bluestar 16 to Townhill Park:
* Reduced from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes weekday daytimes
* Reduced from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes Saturday daytimes
Cross-City Bluestar 17 between Weston, City, Shirley, General Hospital, Lordshill and Adanac Park:
* Reduced from every 10 minutes to every 12 minutes weekday daytimes
* Reduced from every 10 minutes to every 15 minutes Saturday daytimes
Cross-city Bluestar 18 between Thornhill, Bitterne, City, Shirley and Millbrook
* Reduced from every 10 minutes to every 12 minutes weekday daytimes
* Reduced from every 10 minutes to every 15 minutes Saturday daytimes
Now I don’t want to sound critical….
…. but did anyone see these changes anywhere before Christmas? Contact Clive from Southampton e-mailed me overnight to tell me they were there. I don’t remember seeing them (you would have though I had when I was doing the Christmas stuff) and there has been nothing on social media.
Yet apparently it has been a published article for the last 2 weeks.
That being said, the Christmas Day special services on the 1X and 18X still appear in the timetable listings, you would have thought there would have been a scheduled “unpublishing” date of Boxing Day set for them….
Maybe!
I am just losing my touch, missed it, and am focusing on too large an area?
[Note to self: Need more Bluestar pictures]
Article has defo been back dated. Relevant staff werent even told until the 20th at the earliest.