As we get closer to the children finishing another school year we are at the time where the open top buses are usually drying out from their rain-based top deck clean and seafronts are stocking up on Mr Whippy. While we all slowly wither into a small punnet of prunes and realise that there is a second three o’clock in the day (well I know there is, I am sat in it writing this) there are a few timetable changes that are coming up.
We all know about the new Southsea Express and the press have also been all over the fact that it will save people half an hour between Fareham and Southsea the new First Solent X3 is just a part of some changes across First Solent and Stagecoach.
Many of the timetable changes are minor and are designed to improve reliability:
- First Solent 1 – The Hard – Fratton – Eastney – Southsea
- First Solent 3 – Fareham – QA Hospital – Cosham – Gunwharf – Southsea
- Stagecoach South 18 – Paulsgrove – North End – Fratton – Clarence Pier
- Stagecoach South 20 – Havant – Crookhorn – QA Hospital – Stamshaw – Gunwharf Quays
Some will also harbour frequency changes though
- Stagecoach South 21 – Gunwharf – Copner – Anchorage Park
- Reduced from every 12 minutes to every 15 minutes
- Still awaiting timetable
The timetables for First Solent are effective from 26th July and Stagecoach South from 2nd August. It should be noted that some of the change to the 3 (and also the 7) are due to the re-opening of Lake Road.
New Forest Show & Bournemouth Airport
There are some new timetables from morebus as well. The first is for the New Forest Show which has a mixture of frequencies throughout the day between Brockenhurst Station and the New Forest Show site. For those looking for potentially unusual buses in New Forest locations, the timetable is here.
There is also a timetable showing for a service YX1 between Poole Bus Station and Bournemouth Airport. At one trip a day, it appears to be for the workers of the industrial areas around the airport area, in a similar way to what the 737 service has become. The timetable is here.
There was a petition to reinstate a more frequent bus service to the airport last year, however I never heard of it going very far. I can not see Bournemouth getting any sort of service like Bristol Airport, or even a new train station like Cardiff re-opened in 2005, but what would come first? More flights or better connections?
Timetables sans Context
There are quite a few timetables that are being shown on the Service Changes page although I have not seen anything other than them. These are updates that are seen by the Bus Open Data Service before the Traffic Commissioner sees the registration:
- Bluestar from Saturday 18th July and Saturday 1st August
- morebus from Monday 27th July
I suspect the July changes are in-part tied to the end of the school year. All of the Bluestar schools and colleges services have changes registered – which I suppress from the page – for 18th July as well. Of course, with the summer season coming many services across morebus will be affected by the lack of intelligent parking and my memory suggests that extra time gets added.
With parts of Bournemouth town centre closed to buses until next year, the chaos may indeed be more chaotic for the next 8 weeks!
and Services sans Timetable
I know, I noticed that although the new First Solent X3 / X4 / X5 combined service has a listing for 1st September, nothing surfaced on the website for the July introduction… my next task now it’s 5am is to go find it!
Summer extras in South Dorset include:
First X50 open top bus, Weymouth-Lulworth-Wool-Wareham-Swanage resumes 23 July; interleaves with X54 to give an hourly service.
DCT 200, Wareham Station-RSPB Arne, resumes 22 July; now has funding to run every Weds all year round; also runs Tues & Sat in summer sch hol with route extended to Purbeck Park P&R for Norden Station (Swanage Rlwy).
– Tony
So many buses going to Portsmouth to Fareham and great improvements to services between Gosport and Fareham,but just adding one late evening journey between Southampton and Fareham leaving Southampton around 9:30 pm to 10:30 pm would make a huge difference people that can’t afford the expensive train fares or don’t drive are cut off from Southampton after early evening it would be nice if first could spare at least one extra evening journey
The problem is there’s a lack of passengers in the evening on the buses between Southampton and Fareham so it would not be viable to run them unless there’s funding
It’s like the day finishes about 5pm for any travel west of Fareham with a little exception if you just want to go to Locks Heath about 6pm, or Park Gate & Whiteley on the 28\28A. The day doesn’t even start for any bus travel from Soton eastwards until getting on for 8am.
I assume First think of working 9 to 5 & that’s it!
What can you do if there’s hardly and passengers using the X4 and X5 between Fareham and Southampton after 5pm
Sometimes I have been the only passenger the whole time until I get to the common section on Portsmouth Road
Do you expect them to run in the evenings with no passengers and lose money?
The reason there is not many passengers after 5PM because people heading to Southampton know they ain’t going to get back,areas such as park gate,locks heath and warsash now have a lot of families with older children and many say there children would welcome a later evening services so they could visit Southampton for the cinema, restaurants etc.in the daytime this service is well used by a range of the population those commuting to work, students going to college schools etc and those for shopping etc.if you read many of the Facebook groups in the area many are saying given the opportunity they would definitely make use of later evening journeys into and out of Southampton.
Maybe the solution will be to extend the new 26 in a loop around the western Wards, as that has later journeys on it.
Service 10 Southampton – Sholing will run via Northam Bridge from the end of August.
That is correct.
I am just waiting for an update on service 7 – where I have an anomaly between two sets of data.
A full rundown coming this week hopefully – albeit timetables are now on the Service Changes page
Would be good to see which is right for the 7, at the moment looking at the timetables using the link provided it looks like (unless there are long layovers particularly in the evenings) that the 7 and 16 could be interworking one another at the Aldermoor turning circle
I have sent Bluestar a ping to ask the about it. Both the 7 and 16 (at least in the most recent BODS download I have pulled – I pull daily) are shown as terminating at Aldermoor all day every day…. I am not convinced that is a logical thing. I have actually run the data independently outside of the automation and got the same result.
It might be that my system has missed something subtle, or it may be something uploaded badly. Bus Times show the 7 still going to Lords Hill though.
A missed opportunity exists to better coordinate the final Bluestar 3 Eastleigh – Hedge End service: currently, it terminates in the Town Centre at 7:54pm. Extending this route a few stops to reach Hedge End Superstores by 8:00pm would allow for a seamless connection with the 8:12pm Bluestar 14 to Southampton City Centre, removing the need for a 30-minute wait for the subsequent Bluestar 26 from Whiteley.
Talking of BS3 a new late journey at 22:50 from City is coming from Sept 1.