With a few weeks away – well I say away but I mean screaming and shouting at a CLI terminal getting the Service Updates page to work better – there have been a few things going on.
Bus Timetable revised to match Train Timetable
From Monday 17th August, morebus service 31 has a revised timetable.
South Western Railway have reduced their services between Southampton and Weymouth following a fire causing a significant damage to New Milton sub-station. The timetable change on the trains took place on 10th August, but (and I am not criticising this) morebus needed an extra week.
There is no estimate for how long the emergency timetable will be needed for, but the timetable for the revised 31 service is on the morebus website.
Changes at Stagecoach Basingstoke
Although the service changes page shows lots of timetable changes for the Basingstoke area, they are predominantly for the move back to the school timetable – yes it is something that I am working on and trying to beat the automation into submission about.
There are timetable changes to services 1 and 2 which are simply to better reflect the traffic conditions.
There is a reduction though to service 10 between Basingstoke town centre and Old Basing. This is apparently due to reducing passenger numbers, which as many will probably already know is one of those reactionary merry-go-rounds of reducing the timetable leading to reduced use, leading to reducing the timetable.
Service 13 will have changes around the schools trips due to changes in the school day at a number of schools along the route, and the schools trips on service 12 between Basingstoke and Queen Mary College will be replaced by extending Newbury service 32 to the college.
Victorious
As usual there will be an influx of green over the late Summer Bank Holiday as Xelabus return to the X27 service between Gunwharf Quays and Clarence Pier. This is for the Victorious Festival and Stagecoach South will also be providing services from “Farlington Playing Fields” to the festival site.
Site Changes
So what have I been screaming at the CLI about? Well having tried to work on a live (and automated from the VOSA and BODS data) service changes page I am still trying to improve the accuracy. I should have triaged services based on their VOSA registration number from the beginning, but I thought I know better.
What has begun is that I can now generate service route maps, both on a service by service basis and on any combination of operator and services. It’s not perfect, but I am working on it.
I also am working on a list of service history based on VOSA registration changes. It will take a while, and it is directly connected to the changes to the service changes page. Maybe, maybe, one day it will lead to something akin to a service history by operator!