Southampton Unilink

[vicbury]

Hi all,

Having enrolled at the University of Southampton this week, I would like to share some comments and observations of the Unilink bus service.

I made two return trips between the Highfield Campus and Southampton Central and overall I was pretty impressed with the service. For starters, bus travel in Southampton is cheap! £1.50 for a Plusbus with a Young Person's railcard versus over £3 for the equivalent ticket in Bath or Bristol.

I travelled exclusively on the U1 and the presentation of the brand new Enviro 400s was superb, both inside and out. It was good to see the interior advertising space devoted to useful information regarding the service rather than various irrelevant companies as is the norm.

The vehicles themselves are fairly standard Enviro 400s, although they are dual door which is a massive plus with the crush loadings that I experienced. I would have preferred B9TLs or Gemini integrals but Enviros are generally pretty good.

The service experienced a lot of bunching on both days (Wednesday and Thursday). I don't know whether this was due to traffic problems or high loadings, or both, but the capacity of the route was at absolute maximum. The service is frequent at every 7-8 minutes but between 0745-0816 the service is only every 10 minutes from Southampton Central and really struggled.

I was surprised to find that Real Time Information was not in use, both at the stops and online. Is the something that the Council and Go-Ahead will be investing in during the near future?

Finally the new bus shelter at Southampton Central is tiny! It can accommodate maybe 8 people, why on earth did the Council not install something of a suitable size such as this?

 

[nicobobinus]

Hi all,

Having enrolled at the University of Southampton this week, I would like to share some comments and observations of the Unilink bus service.

I made two return trips between the Highfield Campus and Southampton Central and overall I was pretty impressed with the service. For starters, bus travel in Southampton is cheap! £1.50 for a Plusbus with a Young Person's railcard versus over £3 for the equivalent ticket in Bath or Bristol.

I travelled exclusively on the U1 and the presentation of the brand new Enviro 400s was superb, both inside and out. It was good to see the interior advertising space devoted to useful information regarding the service rather than various irrelevant companies as is the norm.

The vehicles themselves are fairly standard Enviro 400s, although they are dual door which is a massive plus with the crush loadings that I experienced. I would have preferred B9TLs or Gemini integrals but Enviros are generally pretty good.

The service experienced a lot of bunching on both days (Wednesday and Thursday). I don't know whether this was due to traffic problems or high loadings, or both, but the capacity of the route was at absolute maximum. The service is frequent at every 7-8 minutes but between 0745-0816 the service is only every 10 minutes from Southampton Central and really struggled.

I was surprised to find that Real Time Information was not in use, both at the stops and online. Is the something that the Council and Go-Ahead will be investing in during the near future?

Finally the new bus shelter at Southampton Central is tiny! It can accommodate maybe 8 people, why on earth did the Council not install something of a suitable size such as this?

That route seems to have been struggling to accommodate demand forever. Back in 2005/6 I used it to commute between halls in the City Centre and Highfield. The daytime service was every 15 minutes with slightly odd frequencies during peak hours (to cater for extra back-projections from Eastleigh IIRC) and was notorious for crush loadings even then. The 0820 from Dock Gate 4 often left anyone from Winn Road onwards behind. Full credit to the drivers, they got as many people onto the bus as it could physically (never mind officially) fit, but that did contribute to late running. Things did calm down a bit once the new uni year settled in. Although occasionally they would swap an Omnicity for a Dart...

They must be doing something right to have doubled the frequency and still be packing the buses out. Do they still have a policy of allowing full size bikes on board? Never saw that rule tested, but they're the only company I've known that do it.

 

[Lrd]

Unilink are run by Bluestar who seem to be doing a pretty good job with it. The fares on Unilink are pretty reasonable but go onto Bluestar and First and the prices are quite steep (£2 single for me to get to town).

The Enviro 400s are new this month, I've not been on one yet but keep seeing them everywhere!

The council are doing things with Real Time running info, this year they replaced all the boards at all bus stops across the City and did a lot of work behind the scenes, this is all still ongoing, I have noticed that Bluestar have real time running for most of the Citaro's on the 18 route but for for anything else (inc First) then it just shows the scheduled time.

I like to use the First bus app which shows info for all bus stops across the city, including other operators services. Here is a link to the Android app.

 

[vicbury]

That route seems to have been struggling to accommodate demand forever. Back in 2005/6 I used it to commute between halls in the City Centre and Highfield. The daytime service was every 15 minutes with slightly odd frequencies during peak hours (to cater for extra back-projections from Eastleigh IIRC) and was notorious for crush loadings even then. The 0820 from Dock Gate 4 often left anyone from Winn Road onwards behind. Full credit to the drivers, they got as many people onto the bus as it could physically (never mind officially) fit, but that did contribute to late running. Things did calm down a bit once the new uni year settled in. Although occasionally they would swap an Omnicity for a Dart...

They must be doing something right to have doubled the frequency and still be packing the buses out. Do they still have a policy of allowing full size bikes on board? Never saw that rule tested, but they're the only company I've known that do it.

Without much knowledge of Southampton or the uni (yet), I'd hazard a guess that passenger growth has come from two reasons. Firstly all first years' in halls get free bus travel for the year, and secondly most universities have grown in size therefore there are more students and staff wanting to travel.

I have no idea if bikes are still allowed on board, I wish First would adopt such a policy here in hilly Bath.

I didn't see any buses other than Enviro 400s on the U1. Hopefully as the term continues passenger flows will stabilises and I won't be left stranded at Southampton Central during the winter!

Unilink are run by Bluestar who seem to be doing a pretty good job with it. The fares on Unilink are pretty reasonable but go onto Bluestar and First and the prices are quite steep (£2 single for me to get to town).

The Enviro 400s are new this month, I've not been on one yet but keep seeing them everywhere!

The council are doing things with Real Time running info, this year they replaced all the boards at all bus stops across the City and did a lot of work behind the scenes, this is all still ongoing, I have noticed that Bluestar have real time running for most of the Citaro's on the 18 route but for for anything else (inc First) then it just shows the scheduled time.

I like to use the First bus app which shows info for all bus stops across the city, including other operators services. Here is a link to the Android app.

£2 singles are cheap! Here in Bath First charges £2.90 for the pleasure of travelling on a clapped out Dart from the suburbs to the city centre, a journey time of around 15 minutes. The £1.55 Southampton Plusbus ticket (with a railcard) is valid on Unilink, First, Stagecoach, Blue Star and Velvet services so really is good value for money.

I saw some bus shelters with RTPI boards but they were all switched off and appeared to be the old-style two line red LED boards. The U1 doesn't have RTPI at all because the app that I use was simply showing scheduled departures. The app will show real time info regardless of whether a shelter/stop has a display or not.

Do you know when other routes are scheduled to get RTPI? It would certainly help considering the bunching and delays that I experienced on the U1.
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More overcrowding two days ago with virtually all U1Cs between Highfield and the Centre leaving people behind at most stops after the Highfield Interchange until Above Bar Street. Whilst I understand that the frequency has already been boosted to 7-8 minutes maybe it needs a further boost, or perhaps even bendy buses? I haven't travelled on the entire route but all of which I have travelled on would be suitable for bendy buses.

 

[Lrd]

No idea about any more real time running data.

You won't be getting new buses any time soon as the current ones are only a month old!

 

[AndyLandy]

The vehicles themselves are fairly standard Enviro 400s, although they are dual door which is a massive plus with the crush loadings that I experienced. I would have preferred B9TLs or Gemini integrals but Enviros are generally pretty good.

The mid-doors are pretty much essential on Unilink services. There's a curious story about the previous Plaxtons only coming about because they'd originally ordered buses without the mid-doors, so had to swap them for the older Plaxtons instead.

The service experienced a lot of bunching on both days (Wednesday and Thursday). I don't know whether this was due to traffic problems or high loadings, or both, but the capacity of the route was at absolute maximum. The service is frequent at every 7-8 minutes but between 0745-0816 the service is only every 10 minutes from Southampton Central and really struggled.

This is really common, especially at the start of term when Unilink often run extra unscheduled services to try and handle the demand.

In my opinion, they've managed much better this year than in the past. I've only once been left standing at the bus stop in the last two weeks, and another bus was only five minutes behind.

I was surprised to find that Real Time Information was not in use, both at the stops and online. Is the something that the Council and Go-Ahead will be investing in during the near future?

This is a sore point. We had live Unilink data a couple of years ago, right down to having an iPhone app that told you exactly when the next bus was. But the Council changed supplier and the new system still isn't working yet (It's been offline for over a year now.)

Without much knowledge of Southampton or the uni (yet), I'd hazard a guess that passenger growth has come from two reasons. Firstly all first years' in halls get free bus travel for the year, and secondly most universities have grown in size therefore there are more students and staff wanting to travel.

First years have had free Unilink travel since I was a first year (13 years ago) and probably longer. However, you're quite right that the University has grown in size. I think the Unilink service is also growing in popularity with non-University people, too. And you get the inevitable 'Operation Princess' effect. If you whack up the frequency, people become more inclined to use the service.

I didn't see any buses other than Enviro 400s on the U1. Hopefully as the term continues passenger flows will stabilises and I won't be left stranded at Southampton Central during the winter!

The latest procurement has brought Enviro 400s for the U1 and U6 routes. They're still running older single-decker buses on the U2 route, although there's a new single-decker parked up at the Interchange, but not in use yet.

You sometimes see a single-decker on the U1 route. (I last saw one at the Jubilee Sports Centre on Wednesday) but it's pretty uncommon. I think it only happens when a diagrammed bus is unavailable for some reason.

or perhaps even bendy buses? I haven't travelled on the entire route but all of which I have travelled on would be suitable for bendy buses.

They tried that a few years ago, they don't go round the loop at Southampton Central.

 

[Muzer]

Hi all,

Having enrolled at the University of Southampton this week, I would like to share some comments and observations of the Unilink bus service.

I made two return trips between the Highfield Campus and Southampton Central and overall I was pretty impressed with the service. For starters, bus travel in Southampton is cheap! £1.50 for a Plusbus with a Young Person's railcard versus over £3 for the equivalent ticket in Bath or Bristol.

I travelled exclusively on the U1 and the presentation of the brand new Enviro 400s was superb, both inside and out. It was good to see the interior advertising space devoted to useful information regarding the service rather than various irrelevant companies as is the norm.

The vehicles themselves are fairly standard Enviro 400s, although they are dual door which is a massive plus with the crush loadings that I experienced. I would have preferred B9TLs or Gemini integrals but Enviros are generally pretty good.

The service experienced a lot of bunching on both days (Wednesday and Thursday). I don't know whether this was due to traffic problems or high loadings, or both, but the capacity of the route was at absolute maximum. The service is frequent at every 7-8 minutes but between 0745-0816 the service is only every 10 minutes from Southampton Central and really struggled.

I was surprised to find that Real Time Information was not in use, both at the stops and online. Is the something that the Council and Go-Ahead will be investing in during the near future?

Finally the new bus shelter at Southampton Central is tiny! It can accommodate maybe 8 people, why on earth did the Council not install something of a suitable size such as this?

My favourite thing now is that you can use bus passes on bluestar buses within Soton. This is rather nice now I'm living in the flowers estate as a student (West Swaythling).

However, they have made the daytime U6 service rather useless at least for the Portswood to University section. It no longer stops at Wessex Lane because the double-deckers won't fit under the rail bridge. It's been retimed so it arrives too late for you to be guaranteed to get to your lectures in case the bus is delayed. It's been retimed so it departs the university just as lectures finish, so you have no time to catch it on the way back either. It also runs at almost the same time as the 2, essentially cutting in half the service frequency of that section between Swaythling and Portswood/city centre.

I know you didn't mention it, but "next stop" info onboard buses was trialled a while back. Unfortunately they made the mistake of using a local resident's voice instead of a voice artist, and there were a few errors in the announcements (inconsistencies with bus stop names and it getting confused at the university interchange). I think the really really really irritating voice plus the minor errors caused them to be disabled after a short period of time.