Fare Increases at Go-Ahead
You may find that most bus operators are still heavily involved in the £3 bus cap, but for many shorter hop fares there are increases across the Go South Coast brands.
morebus
- The £1 evening fare will still be available in Zone A after 19:00, but the NightBus fare on N1, N2 and N5 will be a flat £3.
- Most dayrider fares will increase by 10p or 20p, the Zone ABC will increase by 40p.
Bluestar
- The £1 evening fare will be available after 18:00, but again NightBus fares (N1, N2, N9, N17, N18 and U1N) will be £3.
- Dayrider fares will increase again by up to 40p.
Southern Vectis
- The price of all transfer tickets will increase by 10p – these are not covered by the £3 price fare cap.
- Rover tickets will increase by up to 40p
Great South Run Park & Ride
In connection with the Great South Run on 17th & 18th October, First Solent in connection with Portsmouth City Council are running a PR4 bus service from Tipner Park & Ride to Commercial Road and Clarence Pier. Due to the road closures that these events typically bring, buses will be subject to diversion and curtailment across both operators in the city this weekend.
You can find the timetable here. I can only imagine that First Solent branded deckers will be used.
morebus Winter Timetables
The morebus Winter timetable changes take place on Monday 14th September (do the schools go back later in Dorset now?) and there are not really many substantial great shakes:
- General reliability changes to services 3, 3x and 4. Most of these are in the evenings, and the 22:40 service 4 will now run as a 3.
- Minor timetable changes to Christchurch service 20, but also an earlier 08:30 departure on weekdays from Christchurch.
- Lulworth Cove’s Breezer 31 will continue to operate weekends and school holidays until November 1st. The timetable is subject to change while South Western Railway has a reduced service in the area.
- Breezers 40, 50 and 60 will return to their reduced timetables.
- Ringwood service 125 has a new trip at 14:40.
- Ringo services have a general timetable tidy-up.
Weymouth service 30, Dorset Campsites service 35 and Bournemouth Breezer 70 all close down for the winter, there is nothing to suggest they will not be back in 2027!
All the changes and the morebus printable PDF timetables are all available on the morebus news page.
First Wessex Winter Timetables
Weymouth and Dorchester services from First Wessex are also changing albeit across two separate distinctions.
Weymouth’s town routes will get their usual Winter retiming now that the crowds have gone back to school and this takes place on Sunday 20th September. This affects services 1 (Portland), 2 (Littlemoor), 8 (Chickerell), 10 (Dorchester) and the Littlesea and Bowleze Cove caravan park services.
On the Jurassic Coast services the usual winter wind down takes place this weekend. The X50 and X52 services return to their hibernation. The X54 continues running to Swanage at least for a few more weeks!
Although of course, I never fully trust what the timetables tell me about First Wessex. Either my own or those published by First Wessex!
Hoppa-ing Away
By the time this is published, the XElabus run Hoppa services around Bitterne will have already run for the last time and have been withdrawn.
The writing has been on the wall for these services for a while in my opinion. Bitterne has a substantial network of bus services and with new ones starting from Bluestar at the same time I am not surprised about it’s demise.
It’s a service that has been with a number of operators over the years including Southampton City Bus, First Southampton, Xelabus and I am sure even Simon Gard might have run it for a very short time….