Updated 22nd August to include the a Late Night diversion on Star 7 and route change on Solent Rangers.
The start of the autumn school term brings a number of changes to bus services in the Portsmouth area. Both Stagecoach South and First Solent have changes to services (which are of course – related) and these involve both commercial, and financially supported routes.
We have previously reported that details of the Portsmouth City retendering were leaked by one of the local councillors, but there are other changes to report as well.
Changes at First Solent
From Sunday 3rd September most Portsmouth tendered services will move from First Solent to Stagecoach South:
- Service 12 between Fratton, North End and Tipner
- Services 13 and 14 for Milton and Baffins
- Service 18 between Paulsgrove, North End, Fratton and Southsea
- Service 25 between Gunwharf Quays, Southsea and Eastney
First Solent have retained the service 22 between Highbury, Cosham and Farlington. There are no replacement timetables showing at the time of posting, but equally the VOSA short notice registration posted for the current period still shows ending on 02 September.
Personally, I can not imagine there will be a huge change to the service.
Now the reason why I say this is because there are other service registrations now showing timetables for other services that are changing the same weekend:
Solent Rangers X4 & X5
This service is having a bit of an overhaul. I can’t say I like it, I would think that it is going to confuse passengers, but I suspect there is a bit of logic in the service pattern somewhere.
Both services are being extended to run from West Quay shopping centre to Southampton Central Railway Station. In my customer service mind creating a direct link between Central Station and Woolston / Sholing / Lowford is a competition with Bluestar and negates the need to change in Southampton between different colours.
This will mean that the route in Southampton will change and that buses will call outside West Quay and Oxford Street. The old Debenhams store will no longer be served. Solent Ranger service will now also not serve Wrights Hill and Upper Weston Lane; running direct via Portsmouth Road.
It has created the most haphazard timetable though.
The frequency of the each service on the X4 and X5 will be roughly every 40 to 46 minutes. For example, the weekday X4 will depart Southampton Central Station at 0936, 1018, 1100, 1142 (obviously, earlier and later buses will run as well).
The full timetable is available to download here on the First Solent website.
I know, it gives three buses between Southampton Central Station and Sarisbury Green an hour, at “around about” every 20 minutes. The problem then is that the entire mismatch continues through the two routes to both Gunwharf Quays and Gosport Bus Station. Surely there must be a point where the service can be balanced out? Like blimey, I remember when Lee-on-the-Solent had:
- Two 34 services an hour (one of which just run Cherque (or Chark) Farm to Fareham)
- The 36 & 36A (or before that the 37)
- At least one number 72 an hour
- Summer trips on the 33 or 99A/C (dependent on what year it was)
Likewise, it appears that the services departing both Gosport Bus Station and Gunwharf Quays do not have any regularity to them. You would think that a straight hourly service, with an additional bus put in from Fareham, would be a more sensible option?
The Star 7 & 8
There is a frequency increase on The Star, probably using the vehicle and staffing reductions from the tendered service changes.
In the instance of The Star 7 the weekday daytime service will increase from every 20 minutes to every 12 minutes. Previous assumptions that the withdrawal of the 7A would lead to additional school services has not materialised.
Evening services also get strengthened, with some of the “Friday Only” trips now running all week.
Saturday daytime services will now also strengthen to every 15 minutes and Sundays every 20 minutes.
Late Night trips will run via Winston Churchill Way & Cambridge Road for the University of Portsmouth.
For The Star 8, the Monday to Saturday daytime service will increase from every 20 minutes to every 15 minutes. The Sunday service will also increase from every 30 minutes to every 20 minutes.
You can download the timetables for Star 7 and Star 8 from the First Solent website
Eclipse E1 & E2
There are timetable changes listed for the Eclipse services although like the Solent Rangers, the timetable is not running along a clock-face.
Some of the Monday to Saturday services will vary from every 15 to every 18 minutes on each route. This does have a knock on effect at Gosport where buses heading out of the peninsula leave a couple of minutes apart. This is not as bad on a higher frequency route though, and overall there are more services per day.
There is no change to the Sunday frequency with a bus every 30 or 31 minutes; although the occasional bus has a one minute change here and there.
You can download the Eclipse timetable here.
Changes at Stagecoach South
Firstly, is it just me or has something broken the Stagecoach website? My location on the website is stuck on Camberley, when I go to change it the search bar and “my location” don’t work, and on the timetables page it won’t let you search for services.
It could just be my Chrome browsers (across PC’s laptops and mobile phones…..)
With the changes to the contracted services in Portsmouth, Stagecoach South have only recently lodged the registrations under short notice arrangements. Timetables on the new services are now available on TravelineSW.
It is interesting that there is no replacement for what was the First Solent 2a from Gunwharf to Portsmouth College… yet
Service 12 between Tipner and Fratton
There are no changes to the route or timetable.
Services 13 & 14 for Milton
The service route appears to be the same between First and Stagecoach for the handover, but there will be some relatively minor changes to the timetable.
Some early trips will run 10 minutes earlier than now, some later afternoon trips run 10 minutes later. This is the case for Monday to Saturday trips. For Portsmouth College students, there is no longer a 9am-ish duplicate.
The Sunday timetable remains unchanged.
Service 18 between Paulsgrove, Fratton and Southsea
There are no changes to the route or timetable.
College Service 21
The Havant to Portsmouth College service 21 – I get the feeling it might run as 621 (?) will run 10 minutes earlier throughout. This is to allow the bus to then go on to one of the new contract routes – my guess is the 12.
Service 25 for Eastney
Looking at the timetable for the 25 out to the Hayling Ferry, there is no change to the route or the core timetable.
The last services are removed from the daily timetable, which if I remember correctly is a summer trip normally anyway; so I am not too concerned about that. The last trips will leave Gunwharf Quays at 1705 (1715 Sundays) and Hayling Ferry at 1602 (1630 Sundays).
Slightly outside Portsmouth
There are also changes outside Portsmouth with changes to other Stagecoach services:
Service 69 Fareham to Winchester
There are minor weekday changes affecting the 0706 from Wickham to Winchester (now leaving 0706 school days only) and the 1755 from Fareham (which extends from Bishops Waltham to Winchester)
Services 30 & 31 for Hayling Island
The weekday timetables before 1000 and from 1500 to the close of service change to improve reliability. it does however have the effect that a small number of additional trips. Saturday services are revised after 1800.
A new later trip at 2320 will also run Monday to Saturday.
A new later trip at 2035 on Sundays.
Service 39 for Waterlooville and Wecock Farm
A completely revised timetable Monday to Saturday with added running time, although the service remains every 15 minutes. Buses start half hour earlier from Havant, and now run until 2245.
Sunday services double, starting at 0745 and running every 30 minutes until 1715 (from Havant), thense hourly until 2045. Last bus from Wecock Farm is 1935.
Regarding the X4 & X5. They were once both every half hour making it near enough every 15 minutes to/from Fareham. This super-tinkering with a silly frequency has been going on before Covid with journeys been stopped & evening buses gone.
If First were really serious they would create a new X6 to run via Whiteley & North Whiteley (it’s grown now – up to about 3000 homes happening) to supplement the X4 & X5. Run up from A27 through Whiteley & out via M-way junction roundabout to Titchfield.
More than likely 3 buses an hour from Soton makes money but 4 buses does not. This ar$e about face 45-ish min frequency will put people off no end. I do wish BStar would run a proper bus frequency to Fareham. If it’s one an hour people get used to it. If it is one every 30 min people get used to it. If it’s one bus every 42 & 1/2 minutes folk will get miffed & drift away.
In a sense First are running what they used to run way way way back in the days of the 72, 78 & 80 3 buses an hour from Soton except nothing via Bitterne.
There was once another route too that ran (X70?) through Park Gate & onto Fareham around 1999/2000. Didn’t last long.
There was a limited stop X70 for a while which ran Gosport – Park Gate – Southampton. Whether it went via Fareham or Stubb and Lee is far back in the bit of memory that has long been eradicated with other things.
I agree with you about clock-face timetables. Surely with the current anti-Railway Government approach, it would be good to get a decent “inter-town” service in place as I don’t think the industrial action will be ending soon. Offer a real alternative to the SWR service via Hamble. I really can not fathom how Lee and Cherque Farm is only suitable for 1 bus every 42-ish minutes. I don’t know what the overall solution is though?
From my 1974 Fareham and Gosport timetable 🙂 there was an X70 that ran every 60 minutes via Lee, Stubbington, Titchfield and Bitterne; and a 93 that ran every 60 minutes between Gosport and Southampton via Stokes Bay, Lee, Stubbington, Titchfield, Warsash and Bitterne. From the opening of the M275, an X71 ran between Southsea and Southampton via M275, Fareham, Locks Heath and Bitterne, every hour full route with hourly shorts between Southsea and Fareham. A few years later this became the X16.
By 1999 things had got seriously busy on the motorway – X27 Southsea – Southampton direct via M275, M27 and Bitterne (i.e. missing Fareham) (hourly); X47 as above but calling into Hedge End Superstores (hourly); hourly X57 Commercial Road to Fareham via Portchester (extending to Lee as X58 on Saturdays); and the hourly 80 from Commercial Road to Southampton via Fareham, Titchfield, Locks Heath and Woolston. Gosport had the hourly X70, and the hourly 72 which looks like the former 93 renumbered, all running via Woolston by that time.
Yes it’s the hourly X70 – that’s the one I was not sure about. I used to travel at the time from Park Gate to Gosport War Memorial Hospital around 1999. Also, your mentioning of the X47 & X27, clicks my mind into there being at at one point a scheduled bus/coach service interworking with the X47/X27, Brighton to Bournemouth via Portsmouth/Fareham/Southampton under the tag name of “South Coast Express” (may have even been numbered X27)
Our anonymous friend’s recollection of 1974 is far before I was even a twinkle in my mother’s eye; but it sounds like there was a far wider service than even the 1990s!
As for the X27; that was a joint op between Stagecoach and Southampton City Bus.
Whether that was competing with the last years of the W&D / SBL X35 (and X31/X32) or after – alludes me.
Telling Golden Miller later had a stab at the shorter X27 / 727 as well, based out of Fratton in the early naughties.
I recall TGM covering the X27/727. The history of the routes is much more than it seems for sure. What operator hasn’t had a stab at a service?! LOL! I would not know either about the X31/X32/X35. Great to discuss though.
First has a record of breaking regular frequencies before saying ‘the number of passengers has dropped and it’s no longer viable’. They did it on the 63 between Fareham and Havant. It would be better to bite the bullet and make both X4 and X5 hourly, as per Saturday, maybe supplemented by shorts between Fareham and Portsmouth / Gosport, and Bursledon to Southampton, and using the time at the Portsmouth end to extend to Southsea or at least Clarence Pier again. I like the suggested X6, Whiteley is a classic case of the bus service being provided so late that the market is already tied into car use; but with North Whiteley now rolling out, a Locks Heath / Whiteley to Southampton service must surely be a viable proposal.
In the successful Portsmouth BSIP (which is where a lot of the evening provision improvements is funded from) the headline proposal is that the X4 becomes every 10 minutes between Fareham and Portsmouth, so maybe this would mitigate against these changes.
Shamrock & Rambler also ran a service from Weymouth to Bournemouth to Southampton from October 1987 which ran every 2 hours. From memory I don’t think it even lasted a year. I used it once from Weymouth to Bournemouth on a Duple Laser bodied Leyland Tiger and was the only passenger for the whole journey. The leaflet cover can be seen on this link:
http://www.countrybus.com/charlies.htm
Again from memory, I think this is when Wilts & Dorset introduced the X35 in an attempt to see off the competition. They had 3 high floor Volvo B10M Plaxton coaches (fleet numbers 3233-35) acquired from Oxford Bus Company for the sevice which were later transferred to Salisbury when the service ended.
I would personally go for a complete overhaul of the Solent Rangers, creating three separate hourly services spaced at 20 minute intervals:
X4: Soton – Warsash – Locks Heath – Titchfield – Fareham – Portchester – Portsmouth
X5: Soton – Park Gate – Locks Heath – Titchfield – Stubbington – Lee – Gosport
X6: Soton – Park Gate – Whiteley – Segensworth – Fareham – Stubbington – Lee – Gosport
As well as providing an increased frequency and direct service from Soton – Whiteley, it also reinstates the faster direct link between Titchfield and Stubbington which was axed when the 4/4A/X4 became the X4/X5.
I recall Tellings Golden Miller saying the reason their X27 failed was that too many people were boarding with a Solent Travelcard, having bought it earlier on a First or Solent Blue Line bus, so TGM got no revenue.
Another memory from the naughties: it was possible to hop off a Warsash-bound X57 at one end of West St, pop into a couple of shops, then get back on the same bus at the other end of West St after it had faffed about going in and out the bus station.
Bluestar stlll haven`t provided details of the September changes-though Unilink have now provided the new timetable for the new U7 route.
Yup, I saw that.
An email to Bluestar, to confirm whether it is staff and student only, or public, has gone unanswered. I have heard the former, but the news item suggests latter
You need to use managersmailbox@bluestarbus.co.uk,to actually gain a reply from them in my experience.
Portsmouth news newspaper reporting today that Portsmouth City Council have teamed up with First Solent and Stagecoach, to offer free travel within Portsmouth every Sat and Sun in September.