So I was hoping to have a few more details for you about the outcome of the Hampshire County Council Cabinet meeting a few weeks back.
The outcome of the meeting resolving about public transport financing was itself delayed by the General Election and the restrictions of purdah; however at the same time no-one likes answering some pretty simple e-mails.
There have been a few things announced at both a county and a national level over the coming weeks though, so alongside other things, let’s start our round-up there.
All Cuts Approved
The takeaway from the HCC Cabinet meeting is that all of the recommendations that were held ready for approval were rubber stamped.
This means that among other things, the council approved for changes to the Disabled National Concessionary Pass. This means from a date not yet advertsied, they will no longer be valid before 0930 on weekdays as far as I can tell.
This also means that the less commonly available “Companion Pass” where one person can travel free with the disabled bus pass holder, will also no longer be available.
A number of financially supported bus services will also lose their funding; including routes like Firs Solent’s 20 between Fareham and Wickham and Stagecoach South’s 61 between Winchester and Eastleigh. Of course, this is not to say that services affected will be entirely withdrawn if the operator decides to take on more commercial risk.
Hampshire County Council have previously told the Hampshire Chronicle that it is not considering a bus franchising model, following on from the consultation launched in September by the Government.
and the Bus Fare Cap up
To me not surprising, but to others it is a shock; but the bus fare cap introduced by the Conservative Government will increase from 1st January from £2 to £3.
With no apology for being over-simplistic with that statement, technically the bus fare cap introduced in January 2023 is ending on 31st December. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced as part of the budget last week that a new £3 bus fare cap will be introduced.
Although I know that many people will complain that it is a 50% increase and unaffordable, I think that it is the lessor of the two evils. The bus fare cap could have simply been allowed to lapse, with operators full fare prices being charged.
Certainly around these parts, when a fare increase has been announced the wording has been quite careful that single fares have gone up, however the bus fare caps means you have still been charged £2.
I think that from a Governmental sense that this is the right move because we also have the consultation and changes for councils to be able to take control of their own bus networks. One of the original bus franchising trials, the Bee Network in Manchester, has already been confirmed by Mayor Andy Burnham to commit to continuing the £2 fare cap.
The difference between the Greater Manchester fare cap and the national fare cap is that the former is funded by the Bus Service Improvement Fund, where as the latter is directly from central Government. Of course, if Hampshire County Council had not already discounted any possbility of franchising; they could have continued to offer a £2 cap independently.
NoLongerMegaBus
From 4th December, MegaBus will be discontinuing most of their operations outside of Scotland.
Stagecoach sold the MegaBus (and South West Falcon) operations to Scottish CityLink in 2022, with the latter obviously deciding that most operations outside of Scotland are no longer feesible.
In our area, the only service expected to continue running is the M84, with runs between Portsmouth & Southampton, Manchester & Newcastle, Edingburgh and Glasgow. This service is run by Parks of Hamilton on behalf of Megabus.
Service Changes
A service change that Clive has pointed out I missed was with at the start of the new University year.
As you would expect, the service frequencies increased in line with university needs, which means the U1A & C are back to a bus every 6 to 8 minutes during the weekday.
Of note though are some more significant changes:
- Weekend service U1 trips will not continue to Eastleigh
- U1E is cut by more than half
- Night service U1N will terminate at Wessex Lane Halls instead of Southampton Airport (or Eastleigh)
- Night service U1N will run on Tuesday nights ( presumably that is student night in the City Centre? )
- U6 & U6H will run every 30 minutes on Sundays
Sandbanks Ferry
The Sandbanks Ferry is now closed for it’s annual maintenance. This is expected for up to 2 weeks, although in previous years it has overrun.
morebus have provided a detaled update on the three services which will run for the duration of the works.
On The Trains
Now we do not talk about trains too much on here, but as a heads up there are some railcard price changes that are on the cards.
With the exception of the Disabled Railcard, the cost of railcards will increase across the board by £5 in March 2025. This is alongside a 4.6% increase in regulated fares.
It is also worth noting that there is a fares promotion planned by the Government for the early part of 2025. It is likely to be on advance tickets, with train operators already looking at the management and availability of Advance fares in preparation.
Tuesday night was often a student night when I was at UoS – but moreso along the Bevois Valley Road than the city centre. So in some ways this should’ve happened many years ago!
Not on this topic but a word on the Bluestar 21 (former Xelabus X11) and how they appear to have sourced the vehicles. I realise this relates to the previous post but it’s now been closed. Source – on the ground observations and bustimes.org.
As I thought might happen the service is mostly operated by Enviro200s displaced off other routes, which in turn have gone over to double-deckers otherwise idle during the day between school/college services. However the actual working patterns are quite convoluted (more than necessary? I presume it’s all due to driver duties).
One of the two duties comes off the 20 to form the 0855 on the 21, while the 20 is taken over by a double-decker off a school/college service. This stays on the 21 all day before moving onto 14/13 circuits starting with the 1455. This takes over from a double-decker which did the 1155 journey on the 14 and the 1333 on the 13, and which then moves onto school/college duties.
However the convoluted bit is that the 1155 itself replaces a single-decker which did the 0855 and 1033 journeys on the 14 and 13 respectively – and which then goes onto the 20 to replace the double-decker mentioned above!
I’m thinking that an easier pattern would have been to put the double-decker on the 0855, 1033, 1155, 1333 sequence on the 14 and 13 and keep the 20 on single-deckers – but I guess there must be driver-based reasons for not doing this.
Meanwhile the other duty on the 21 is effectively allocated to a single-decker which formerly stood idle for much of the morning in the city centre. However even that is a little convoluted, for the single-decker comes off the duty with the last 21 of the day, the 1355, operated by the double-decker which has operated the 0913-1025-1203 sequence on the 10, 14 and 13 respectively – a long-standing double-deck duty. It then does the short 2 from St George’s School to the City Centre before forming the sixth, peak-only journey on the 20.
Meanwhile the 21 single-decker then goes onto the 1355 journey on the 14, with some re-jigging of other 13/14/10 duties to accommodate this.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed post.
I am surprised that the duty boards are as complicated as that, I thought drivers had changeovers in Southampton City Centre as a matter of routine?
Someone, somewhere, has either crunched a lot of numbers to make it work, or given it to an AI machine. I could understand the logic of swapping in and out the 20 to fit double deckers on school runs.