Yellow Buses has announced its April 2022 network changes:, with the following main changes compared to November 2021 timetable (note that Saturday timetable is now in effect for all Monday - Saturday, and night services aren't running at all due to pandemic-related excuses):
Route 1:
The terminus for most departures terminating at Poole Railway Station is moved to Poole Quay (Thistle Hotel), with only two afternoon peak departures remaining at Poole Railway Station. Departures from Bournemouth to Poole Quay will serve Poole Railway Station but not from Poole Quay to Bournemouth. (For comparison, the current arrangement is to terminate at Poole Railway Station, with only Bournemouth-bound departures (except one afternoon peak departure) running a loop through Poole Quay).
In addition, one late evening journey Monday - Friday in each direction will be extended to Poole Quay, leaving a gap from the usual 30-minute pattern from Westbourne which will start short from Bournemouth Triangle.
Route 1a:
The first departure to New Milton will be extended to start from Bournemouth, and a massive service reduction in evening peak from at most 10-minute headway until 19:15 from Bournemouth, to changing to 15 / 20-minute headway from 18:00 Monday - Friday and 17:20 Saturday.
On Saturday, typical daytime pattern will change from 8 buses per hour (6 buses to Somerford running every 10 minutes + 2 buses to New Milton in between) to 6 buses per hour (running every 10 minutes, 4 to Somerford only and 2 all the way to New Milton). One evening departure each way on Monday - Saturday is extended to New Milton (for comparison, the previous timetable had a late night 1an departure from Bournemouth - New Milton which has no longer been running since January this year).
Route 1b:
Sunday service will be withdrawn, with departures running as route 1 instead. This result in a COMPLETE LOSS of Sunday bus service through Cranleigh Road.
Route 2:
No major change. One morning journey on Monday - Saturday will no longer go to Bearwood, and the 23:55 Friday - Saturday night journey from Bournemouth to Castlepoint is withdrawn. The early Sunday Bournemouth - Hospital journey is retimed to run earlier.
Route 3:
No major change. The last bus from Westbourne to Castlepoint is withdrawn, and the previous trip to Westbourne terminating short at Bournemouth Square. Presumably Yellow Buses thinks it's no longer worthwhile to operate this journey and decides to send its passenger to its rival morebus m1 (which overlaps this 100%) instead.
Route 3 operated with 15 minutes headway Monday - Saturday in 2021, now with 20 minutes headway.
Route 3x:
Service will be castrated to run express only between Springbourne Roundabout and Bournemouth Hospital (instead of current Bournemouth Station - Hospital express), with routing modified to run circuitous through Charminster and no longer serves Castlepoint at all. Western terminus is extended from Bournemouth Square to Bournemouth Triangle with exception of departures serving Branksome.
Massive service reduction for Monday - Friday evening peak, with only 1 bus running the service instead of 2 in the old timetable.
First bus (and second bus on Monday - Friday) from Bournemouth Hospital to Bournemouth is gone, with first bus postponed to 07:01 in the new timetable from 06:07 in the old timetable.
Sunday service is GONE completely.
Here is the extent the route 3x will be castrated by comparing it to the old route, to the slow circuitous routes 2 and 3, and to its rival morebus routes X1, X2, X3 and X6:
Bournemouth Hospital - Bournemouth Station:
Current old express route 3x: 11 minutes daytime, 11 minutes evening (in practice this can be done in 8 minutes)
Castrated new route 3x: 16 minutes daytime, 16 minutes evening
Route 2: 24 minutes daytime, 19 minutes evening
Route 3: 24 minutes daytime, 22 minutes evening
However, although morebus X1/X2/X6 doesn't serve the station directly, the Cotlands Road stop just off the A338 is a short walk to the station which is scheduled 9 minutes from the hospital on the direct route.
Bournemouth Hospital - Bournemouth town centre:
morebus X1/X2/X6: 14 minutes daytime (no evening service)
morebus X3: 18 minutes daytime, 17 minutes evening
Current old express route 3x: 19 minutes daytime, 19 minutes evening
Castrated new route 3x: 24 minutes daytime, 24 minutes evening
Route 2: 32 minutes daytime, 25 minutes evening
Route 3: 32 minutes daytime, 28 minutes evening
It seems Yellow Buses has failed commercially competing against morebus X1/X2/X3/X6 with this route even by running the 3x at similar times to the X1/X2. It will mean a loss of early morning / evening express services between town centre and the hospital, with the new circuitous routing nearly as slow as the route 2.
Route 4:
Monday - Saturday services will be extended from Christchurch Bargates to Somerford, however, one bus in two every hour on Saturday is cut back to the hospital instead with only the other extended, and Sunday service will be reduced from every 30 minutes to every hour.
Route 4a:
Service withdrawn. This will mean a COMPLETE LOSS of direct service from Winton to the Town Centre without going through the rail station and Lansdowne.
Note that, in 2021, Routes 4 and 4a ran on a combined headway of 15 minutes Monday - Saturday daytime, while on Sunday only route 4 operated with 30 minutes headway. Now the frequency is halved, possibly with the intention of sending passengers to the rival route morebus 13 instead.
Route 5/5a:
Monday - Friday service will be permanently cut to every 10 minutes in daytime as of Saturday, instead of every 7 / 8 minutes originally.
Route 6:
Monday - Saturday evening frequency will be reduced from having about 2 buses per hour to only 1 per hour.
Sunday service will be CUT BACK to Bearwood,
leaving no direct buses from Bearwood to Merley on Sunday. (Current arrangement is one bus per hour every day of the week)
No changes to tendered routes 18, 33 and 36.
Route 21:
The only remaining school-day departure will be withdrawn from July, with previous daytime services already withdrawn last November and being replaced with a tendered route 23 run by morebus.
Only route 125 is left serving Bransgore, with only 2 departures operating on Monday, Wednesday and Friday only.
Route 31:
Service will be permanently withdrawn after an indefinite suspension of operation since this January, with service reduced from a daytime operation to peak-hour operation already last year. Yellow Buses claims it is replaced by the extended route 4 which now serves Christchurch extended from Castlepoint from May 2021, however, route 31 is the only service linking the northern part of St Catherine's Hill (closest to Blackwater Junction) and Royal Bournemouth Hospital which runs express between them, with the closest alternative morebus X1/X2 running slow via Jumpers Corner not serving area north of St Catherine's Hill.
Route 727 / 737:
Airport buses will only run in peak hours. It will no longer be possible to use buses to reach the airport except in peak hours. 727 will be a new route linking Boscombe and the Airport through Christchurch and Blackwater Junction.
New timetable from town:
05:50 from Bournemouth
06:30 from Boscombe
06:45 from Bournemouth (compared to 12:45 as the current last bus)
New timetable from airport:
13:35 to Bournemouth (compared to 10:05 as the current first bus)
16:20 to Bournemouth
16:48 to Boscombe
18:00 to Bournemouth
Note that
Bournemouth Airport is known as a scamport because once a car enters the access road, there will be no way turning back but paying the ransom charge to drop off passengers. There is also no pavement on the access road as well forcing pedestrians, who don't want to pay that ransom to the airport by walking the last segment to the airport, to walk to the carriageway with the traffic causing danger.
Before 2016, there was an express route A1 linking Bournemouth town centre and the airport via A338 every hour operating every day of the week, which provided a useful airport connection to rail passengers (that bus ran non-stop between the train station and the airport, and PlusBus tickets were valid on the route). The lack of public transport at Bournemouth now means we're better off to go to Southampton Airport or Heathrow Airport (there is now a non-stop coach M3 running between Bournemouth and Heathrow Airport) instead of flying from Bournemouth Airport if the appropriate airline is available in both airports. I sincerely wish Bournemouth Airport will go out of business due to lack of public transport making people not being able to access it with minimal cost.
This is a complete disgrace to Yellow Buses, with service reduction everywhere across its whole network.