Today is the day that buses head towards a new normal. Over the next two weeks, almost every bus company are changing their timetables to return to near “pre-pandemic” levels and re-introducing schools specials.
The cost of schools re-opening will be that some bus operators will withdraw some buses to provide a schools ‘bubble’ service for pupils and staff only. Regular customers like you and I will not be able to use them and in many cases the bus company are not providing a replacement for full-fare paying customers.
morebus
The GoAhead Bournemouth and Poole services do not change until next weekend on 6th September. Why this is different to GoAhead’s Southampton brand at Bluestar and their Brighton and Hove operation is a mystery.
This also means that their sub-let Bluestar 6 service is also not going to change until next weekend!
Equally annoying is that there is not much information from the Damory Coaches brand either. I am suspicious that the rural and Dorset tourist services are largely back to timetable, but Damory direct you to morebus for service information and morebus only carries timetables!
In terms of UniBus though, only the U3 is currently running, and that is a single bus going up and down every hour between Southbourne and the University. I suspect this will change once University term dates are decided on.
Yellow Buses
The recently independent Bournemouth bus operator announced their changes early on in the month (well, early compared to everyone else) and so I was quick to criticise that there was no timetable booklet online. They soon put one up and so it was back to happy HantsBus.
Actually it is surprising, because when we originally took a look at the Yellow Buses August Update it was a bit haphazard looking. They have now done quite a tidy job of formatting and it looks much better.
[I would like to think they did it based on my moan on my previous service update…. I doubt it]
The important thing to remember is that Yellow Buses, if you download their PDF timetables, are quite clear that services may change again on the weekend of 26th September. Something that is not really being said by other operators!
Bournemouth to Poole – Service 1 will now run every 30 minutes (Weekends are still hourly)
Service 1b will now only serve Christchurch off-peak.
Service 2 will continue as now to Castlepoint with an hourly extension to to Kinson and Bearwood replacing part of service 4a. This extension is complimented by the 6h which is reduced to 2-hourly due to the resumption of many “normal” services.
Service 4a has significant changes, now routed via Richmond Hill rather than the Railway Station and Lansdowne.
Service 5 / 5a becomes more frequent
Service 8 is withdrawn, which is not surprising, but at the same time raising some complaints on social media.
Services 18 and 36 return to hourly frequencies; the former was only hourly on Weekdays, but regains it’s rightful Saturday service.
Airport and Business Park Service 737 loses it’s Saturday service, but has a revised timetable to better suit the two core customer flows that it caters for.
First Dorset
The First in Dorset service X54 continues to operate it’s daily timetable introduced at the start of August. There are 5 trips a day between Poole, Wareham, Lulworth and Durdle Door, and Weymouth.
The 90 minute journey is actually quite scenic. I have done the end to end journey myself in the past and I want to do it again!
Almost Back to Normal
Even if you want a crafty night out on the socially distanced town, timetables are almost back to their normal standing. There is no night bus service yet, which is a shame as even Brighton has a few of those running and the students are not even back yet.
If you spot something I haven’t, please leave a comment below. It would be good to know that this blog is useful to you in the interim of the SotonBus blog going quiet. I travel the same buses and trains you do and see the same drivers, so you know I want to do the best to keep you informed.