Class450/4DES
Member
Oh okay?
What do you mean "again"? Also do you have more info on this?
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Stagecoach South & South East
- Thread starter SouthEastBuses
- Start date
What do you mean "again"? Also do you have more info on this?
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OptareOlympus
Member
Stagecoach South covered both areas between 1993 and 1999, and then again from 2001 to 2005. The Head Office was based at Lewes (later moving to Chichester). In those periods, East Kent and South Coast Buses were operating companies under common control with Sussex Coastline, Hampshire Bus and Hants & Surrey.
Class450/4DES
Member
Oh okay. That could work again in 2024.
Stagecoach in Sussex
Stagecoach in Hampshire
Stagecoach in Hants and Surrey
All under the Stagecoach South brand.
Man of Kent
Member
- Joined
- 5 Jul 2018
- Messages
- 600
Not quite that simple. Common Managing Director and Engineering Director until 1999, but East Kent has always been a commercially separate business, with management based at Canterbury.
TrainBoy98
Member
Yeah, I'm a paper-ticket kind of person (never trust my phone battery or signal when doing a proper "adventure" on the buses) and therefore am lucky in that the drivers dont notice the difference
Flange Squeal
Established Member
- Joined
- 17 Jul 2012
- Messages
- 1,265
The timetables have now been uploaded and the Hants & Surrey Bus Blog has outlined the changes in more detail on their Service Changes page:So far the Blackwater Valley area has notified the upcoming Hampshire BSIP changes from 5 May. The changes will include:
2 (Farnborough-Camberley): Improved evening service between Farnborough and Hawley Lane, with last departures from Farnborough at 22:35 in lieu of current 20:20. Also noted is an extra weekday 08:20 trip from Farnborough to Camberley, as well as an extension of the weekend Hawley-Camberley starters to begin from Farnborough.
YoYo (Farnborough-Prospect Estate): Renumbered as the 6, with an increased frequency to every 12 minutes, rerouted via West Heath Roundabout instead of Prospect Road bridge to allow larger vehicles to run, and no longer runs certain trips via Farnborough Main station.
20 (Aldershot-Guildford): Extended 20 minute frequencies into weekend evenings and an earlier Sunday journey added.
Still yet to hear from other Hampshire areas of their round of changes. Link:
ServiceUpdatesArticle
www.stagecoachbus.com
MasterSpenny
Member
Kent County Council has announced that the Dover Fastrack service will be operated by Stagecoach South East from this summer. It will also get 5 new electric buses by the end of the year.
www.route-one.net
Stagecoach to start Dover Fastrack BRT with 'interim' fleet - routeone
Stagecoach South East will commence operation of the Dover Fastrack bus rapid transit corridor from this summer.
www.route-one.net
OxtedSignaller
Member
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- 31 Jul 2010
- Messages
- 360
Stagecoach should really be focusing on their existing routes and operations before introducing a service almost duplicating that of Brighton and Hove. They are still regularly cancelling, in excess, of 20 services a day in the Eastbourne area.
Flange Squeal
Established Member
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- 17 Jul 2012
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- 1,265
Further to this, Stagecoach have released details and timetables for the Basingstoke area. The Basingstoke to Newbury 'LINK' will be regaining its '32' number, following on from other such reversions across the Stagecoach South area such as KITE becoming 20 and YoYo to become 6 again.
Why did some of Stagecoach South's routes have names rather than numbers?
It's not just Stagecoach South. Quite a few companies use names for routes instead of numbers.
The 20 between Aldershot and Guildford had been branded as the Kite for a few years and when new route-branded ADL E200s were delivered for the service in early-2015, the opportunity was taken to relaunch it as the Kite. The E200s were then transferred to Peasmarsh a few years later for the University of Surrey contracts, rendering the Kite name redundant, but it wasn't until May last year that the service became the 20 once again.
Stagecoach South's seem strange though - some trunk routes get names, others simply have numbers - some locals have names, others numbers....was there one named route per depot or something? Other operators with named routes - Trentbarton would be the one that immediately comes to mind - at least have some consistency.
Aldershot - Kite
Andover - Activ8
Basingstoke - Link
Farnborough (Aldershot depot) - Yoyo
Portsmouth - Hover
Winchester - Spring
Worthing - Pulse
Not to mention Stagecoach South East's Eastbourne and Thanet loops and the Triangle, a circular route linking Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay.
Lynford1976
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- Joined
- 3 Oct 2015
- Messages
- 130
Portsmouth's "Hover" is the courtesy bus to and from Southsea Hoverport, operated under contract from Hovertravel. This will be operated by First from the 1st. May.
OptareOlympus
Member
There was research carried out in the mid 00s (from memory I think it was Blazefield) that clearly showed passengers recall of a route name was considerably higher than recall of a route number.
SeveerYeliab
Member
- Joined
- 21 Dec 2018
- Messages
- 108
The Triangle will be ceasing as a route number from 5th May, with services in the Canterbury area revised (known for a while now but the timetables have only just come up on bustimes).
The Triangle will become services 400, 401, 600 & 601, each running every 30 mins (every 60 mins on Sundays), which maintain the current frequency.
Route 400 will not serve the University of Kent (but run via Estuary View, currently only served by route 638 a few times a day after the withdrawal of service 4) - buses will terminate at Greenhill and run through to Canterbury via Herne Bay as a route 600.
Route 401 will continue to serve the University (and not run via Estuary View), but buses will terminate at Tankerton.
Route 600 & 601 will run the current routing, however, service 601 will start from Herne Bay Station (not Greenhill), thus the true loop of the triangle will reduce to every 30 mins.
Also from this date, Route 6 will drop from every 30 mins to every 60 mins and be renumbered to 602 (school journeys numbered 603).
There will also be minor revisions to a few services in Canterbury:
Service 3/X3 will have extra running time added, with more trips running past Faversham to Canterbury.
Service 89 will drop to hourly outside the peaks, and no longer serve Bridge Village.
Canterbury City Services, as well as the numerous school services, will see minor timetable revisions.
The timetables for the new triangle routes are available to view on bustimes here, and registrations for other changes here
Trainguy34
Member
The 89 isn't appearing on my bustimes, how did you find out?
fgwrich
Established Member
And since utilised the ex Winchester Park and Ride E300s displaced from Basingstoke predominately by E200MMCs.
That's interesting. Personally I very much prefer a number to a meaningless name - something like "Link" would be more suited to a high-frequency interurban route, rather than an hourly rural service linking two minor towns.
Double deckers in the form of Tridents are found on the 20 most days and at weekends 'Route1' E400 MMCs are very common.
I can only speak for Aldershot, since in the mid 2000s Stagecoach branded a lot of its network after children’s toys: Marbles 2, Connect 4 & 5, YoYo 6, Scoot 15 and Kite 20. Most dropped their brand name but the 6 and 20 adopted them. I can understand the logic of reinstating the 20, it being a historic Aldershot & District number, but the 6 should be left as an outlier, given that Farnborough residents easily recognise and identify with the route as the YoYo.
Route 3 would normally have E200s allocated to this route, but since passengers were being left behind, E300s were allocated to carry as many passengers as possible.
Sussexwatch
Member
This represents a quite substantial 50% reduction between Whitstable/Tankerton and Herne Bay, with all buses running via Greenhill too so longer journey times for though passengers. The original 4/6 Canterbury - Whitstable - Herne Bay - Canterbury circular service began back in 1965 ran every 20 minutes for most of the day. The poor residents of Bridge lose out too, down to just one bus an hour instead of 3. I've know they've been complaining about some 89s going the wrong way via the A2 so I suppose this solves that problem.
TrainBoy98
Member
"Pulse" makes sense to me, travels through the "heart" of Worthing, and regular (used to be every 10mins) "beats"
Lynford1976
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- 3 Oct 2015
- Messages
- 130
I have heard comments about this being the only "pulse" in Worthing, the town being one of God's waiting rooms...
TrainBoy98
Member
I have heard comments about this being the only "pulse" in Worthing, the town being one of God's waiting rooms...
400/600 will now offer an hourly service between Tankerton (Priest and Sow Corner) and Sea Street Roundabout on a Sunday and in the evenings. Sunday is currently a generous 3 an hour (Greenhill two an hour). Some people are in for a shock!
To those who question named routes:
I can remember when clockwise services were 4, 4A, 4X and anticlockwise 6, 6A., 6X. . 'You need the triangle' (or the 6) is much easier to explain to visitors. Maps (they still exist), clearly show a a representation of triangle standing on its apex, makes sense (to me at least) and Loop just means that if you stay on long enough you will be back where you start! Now we will have to explain to visitors waiting in Whitstable that you need a 400 to get to Herne Bay but you will need to get the 600 coming back, however, if you are coming back from (say) Tankerton it will be numbered 400 (or 401). They'll wish they'd stayed at home!!
The new timetables for the 701 now appear on bustimes. Although it’s been registered for Saturday only services, which I’m sure is a mistake on the database’s part, it shows the 701 using the A27 road via Falmer and bypasses Lewes entirely. This would give buses an end-to-end journey time of 95 minutes with half-hour waits at either end. There’s also quite an early finish for Saturdays, with the last buses from Eastbourne at 16:25 and Brighton at 18:30.
SeveerYeliab
Member
- Joined
- 21 Dec 2018
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- 108
The Canterbury changes are now online with all the new timetables, with details on the Stagecoach website (with a little over a week to go and big changes to the Triangle this does seem a bit late).
Changes can be seen here
Of course, the main change is the Triangle renumbered to 400/401/600/601, with only the 400/600 running between Herne Bay and Whitstable, and Route 6 renumbered to 602/603.
There are also a few other changes:
Also, registrations have now come through for the Thanet Changes from June, the headline change of these is the increase of the Thanet Loop frequency from every 10 mins back to its pre-covid every 8 mins (I believe the E200mmcs at Eastbourne will be moving back to Thanet to facilitate this.
Changes can be seen here
Changes to bus services in Canterbury and north Kent from Sunday 5 May 2024
We’re improving timetables, adding some connections, and making the bus network easier to navigate. There will be some changes to routes and route numbers in Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay. There will also be changes affecting bus timetables for services in Sittingbourne, Faversham, Canterbury City, Aylesham and Bridge.
Routes affected by the changes include Triangle, 3/X3, 5, 21/21A, 22, 23, 23A, 25, 36, 89, 638, Uni1/Uni2, and some school-time buses.
Let’s get straight to the point – new Triangle routes
Everyone loves the Triangle service, but it can be confusing when buses all have the same route name - whether they are going in one direction or the other, or serving different places at different times.
So, from 5 May, Triangle buses will have route numbers.
Buses between Whitstable and Canterbury will be numbered 400 and 401.
Buses between Herne Bay and Canterbury will be numbered 600 and 601.
Broomfield and Beltinge will be served on route 602.
Don't worry - you can still travel between Herne Bay and Whitstable on one bus, using route 400 or 600 via Greenhill.
And buses will still operate every 15 minutes between Tankerton, Whitstable and Canterbury (on routes 400/401), and between Herne Bay and Canterbury (on routes 600/601). Buses between Herne Bay and Whitstable will be every 30 minutes.
We’ve added some connections too. Estuary View Medical Centre will be served every 30 minutes on Mondays to Saturdays, which means you can reach medical appointments from Herne Bay (on a route 600 bus via Greenhill), and from Tankerton and Whitstable or Canterbury on route 400.
The Uni of Kent (Keynes college) will be served every 30 minutes on route 401 (and on routes Uni1 and Uni2).
On Sundays buses will continue to run every 20 minutes between Herne Bay and Canterbury, and between Whitstable and Canterbury, with buses every hour running the full Triangle circuit linking Whitstable and Herne Bay.
We hope these new arrangements will make travelling by bus even easier and the timetable more resilient to the impacts of roadworks and traffic congestion.
Check out the new timetables for Triangle routes 400-401-600-601-602 here:
400/401
600/601
602
Other changes from 5 May
The table below shows each change by route, including a link to view the new timetable.
Route number Route description Details 3/3A/X3 Maidstone – Sittingbourne – Faversham – Canterbury There will be a new timetable to help keep buses running on time and improve the reliability of the service while the junction improvement works at the M2/A249 are carried out.
Two evening buses from Canterbury that currently finish at Faversham (Bysing Wood) will be extended to Sittingbourne.
View the new 3/3A/3X timetable here
5 Seasalter – Whitstable – Chestfield – Canterbury There will be a new timetable to help keep buses running on time.
View the new 5 timetable here
6 Greenhill – Herne Bay – Beltinge – Broomfield – Sturry –Canterbury This route will be renumbered to 602 and will operate hourly on Mondays to Saturdays (see details for the Triangle shown above).
Route 6 buses that currently serve Hillborough School in the mornings will be renumbered route 603. There will also be an afternoon 603 bus to Hillborough – something you’ve asked us to provide.
View the new 602 timetable here
21/21A Hales Place – St Dunstan's – Kingsmead - City centre There will be an extra early morning bus from Hales Place and more evening buses after 5pm. A new timetable will apply to help keep buses running on time.
View the new 21/21A timetable here
22 London Road Estate – City centre There will be a new timetable to help keep buses running on time. Buses will run every 20 minutes during the daytime, and every 30 minutes at peak-times.
View the new 22 timetable here
23 Spring Lane Estate – City centre There will be a new timetable to help keep buses running on time. Buses will continue to run every 20 minutes during the daytime. In the afternoon buses will run every 30 minutes.
View the new 23 timetable here
23A Barton Estate – Spring Lane Estate – City centre Bus times will be adjusted.
View the new 23A timetable here
25 Kent & Canterbury Hospital – City Centre Bus times will be adjusted.
View the new 25 timetable here
36 Herne Bay – Birchington – Margate Bus times will be adjusted.
View the new 36 timetable here
89 Aylesham – Canterbury There will be a new timetable. Route 89 buses will operate directly between Aylesham and Canterbury on the A2 and will no longer serve Bridge. Route 17 buses will continue to serve Bridge through the daytime with extra buses at peak times.
View the new 89 timetable here
638 Faversham – Hernhill – Seasalter – Estuary View – Whitstable Bus times will be adjusted.
View the new 638 timetable here
Triangle Herne Bay – Canterbury – Whitstable Please see information in the section above. Uni1 Uni of Kent – London Road – East Station – City centre There will be a new timetable to help keep buses running on time.
View the new Uni1 timetable here
Uni2 Hales Place – Uni of Kent – St Dunstan’s – Kingsmead – City centre All Uni2 buses will serve Kingsmead (Sainsbury’s) in both directions. Towards Canterbury they will serve Canterbury West Rail Station, and towards the Uni they will serve North Lane. There will be a new timetable to help keep buses running on time.
View the new Uni2 timetable here
903 to 921 School-time buses Please see below.
Of course, the main change is the Triangle renumbered to 400/401/600/601, with only the 400/600 running between Herne Bay and Whitstable, and Route 6 renumbered to 602/603.
There are also a few other changes:
- The last two buses on route 3 are renumbered X3 and will continue to Sittingbourne, so last bus from Canterbury to Sittingbourne improves from 1920 to 2100
- A few more journeys on city route 21A in the evening
- Frequency of route 22 will drop from every 15 mins to every 20 mins (every 30 mins at peaks)
- Frequency of route 23 will drop from every 20 mins to every 30 mins in the afternoon
- 89 will drop from every 30 mins to every 60 mins outside of the peaks and not serve Bridge
- All Uni2 buses will serve Kingsmead in both directions
Also, registrations have now come through for the Thanet Changes from June, the headline change of these is the increase of the Thanet Loop frequency from every 10 mins back to its pre-covid every 8 mins (I believe the E200mmcs at Eastbourne will be moving back to Thanet to facilitate this.
buslad1988
Member
- Joined
- 28 Dec 2018
- Messages
- 352
Are the numbers 400/600 historic to these corridors pre-Triangle?
Seems odd to use such high numbers when everything else in the area seems relatively low.