This is a repost of an article from last week. First City Red accelerated it’s service changes and brought then forward from 16th January 2022 to 12 December 2021. The original article is here.
It was originally reported that City Red were going to be reducing services in January due to the ongoing exodus of drivers to HGV and other work. Following a review of the number of drivers they have available at the moment; an acceleration of this has meant that these changes will now take effect THIS WEEKEND Sunday 12th December.
So while half of Twitter turns in it’s username-graves and the Facebook Pages realise that I am just a blogger, not a professional investigative journalist (Hi Mark!) – this is what is changing:
Changes to City Red 2 and City Red 11
From the 16th January, despite the fact that I think there is already elements of inter-working in the off-peak; services City Red 2 and 11 will merge to form a single cross-city service.
The new City Red 2 will run from Millbrook, through the City, to Weston, International Way. This is one of the existing stops that is on the Weston loop of the number 11 and as far as I can tell from the service registration it will simply be a like-for-like replacement.
The one route change that happens is that all journeys will run from Southampton Central Station along Commercial Road and turn right at Above Bar Street, instead of Marlands and West Quay towards the City Centre.
The new City Red 2 timetable is here.
Reductions on City Red 1
- Service is reduced from Every 20 Minutes to Every 30 Minutes Monday to Saturday
- Sunday Service is cancelled
- Service is Diverted – it will now run the following route:
- West Quay
- ASDA / Marlands
- Central Station (south side – where the U1A / U1C stop)
- then (I think – awaiting confirmation) fast to Regents Park Road
- The service starts an hour later and finishes an hour earlier
The new City Red 1 timetable is here.
Reductions on City Red 3
Weekday off-peak timetables will be reduced from Every 10 Minutes to run Every 12 Minutes.
The new City Red 3 timetable is here.
Reductions on City Red 7
Saturday timetables will be reduced from Every 12 Minutes to run Every 15 Minutes.
The new City Red 7 timetable is here.
Reductions on City Red 9
The Monday to Saturday timetable will be reduced from Every 35 to 42 Minutes to run Every 75 Minutes.
The new City Red 9 timetable is here.
I see what you mean about the 1 and it’s first stop after the station probably being Regents Park. The new City network map has the bus stopping at Millbrook train station, a stop it’s physically impossible to reach on the new route, unless they’re planning to reverse down a slip road… I sense the map might be a bit of a rushjob as they’ve not only stopped running buses down Waterloo Road (yet again) they’ve removed it from existence…
It feels a bit end of days for the 1, further reducing frequency and stops. The only time I see this bus busy is early morning, when the route will no longer run. Time to put it out of it’s misery, or if First really need a West of City based route 1 from Totton and Calmore stop trying to compete and reroute M271> Lords Hill > Hospital > Hill Lane.
I love the way your page URL triggers the spam filter!
I think your routing plan would not get past the bean counters. Almost being the Southampton CityBus 4, the anti-nostalga brigade would probably prefer to run it up Regents Park Road to Shirley and then follow everything else in the Shirley Road precession.