Plymouth Citybus try Seaton, again

Plymouth Citybus have announced their service changes for 1st April.

We are making changes to some of our services, which will come into effect on 1st April 2018. With road conditions and congestion changing within the city we are being proactive to ensure our buses are more reliable. Amended timetables are now available online.

PLYMOUTH CHANGES:

• SERVICE 5/5A: An additional Monday to Friday departure from Plymstock Broadway to Royal Parade at 0435. An additional Sunday evening journey will be added departing from Saltash Church Road at 1735 arriving into Royal Parade at 1825 then continuing on to Plymstock.
• SERVICE 8/9: Monday to Saturday we will add additional running time to the 1905 service 8 to improve reliability on this journey.
• SERVICE 20/A: We have adjusted most departures in both directions by 5 minutes to improve connections to other Citybus services. A new timetable is available from the Timetables section of this website.
• SERVICE 21/A: Due to congestion in the Devonport area in the afternoon peak we will make amendments to improve reliability.
• SERVICE 27/28: The two services will now be split into separate timetables to make sure that the information we are supplying to passengers is as clear as possible. The 27 timetable will remain unchanged. The 28 will be adjusted in the morning and afternoon peak Monday to Saturdays to improve reliability.
• SERVICE 34: The 2255 Derriford to Milehouse journey will be withdrawn due to very low passenger numbers. An additional early morning journey will be introduced on a Sunday from Milehouse at 0640. This bus will then serve the normal route via Stoke/Devonport arriving at Royal Parade at 0705.
• SERVICE 42: This service will be diverted via William Prance Road in both directions to be able to serve the Palmerston Heights providing a better link for commuters who wish to get to the development.
• SERVICE 42A/B: The evening timetable has been amended to improve the reliability of the services we operate.
• SERVICE 42C: The timetable will see minor adjustments due to the amendments made to service 42.
• SERVICE 50/A/51/A: Minor adjustments will be made across the timetable Monday to Friday to improve reliability.
• SERVICE 118: The afternoon school journey from Notre Dame will now terminate at St Budeaux. Passengers who wish to continue to Camels Head and Milehouse will need to transfer onto the service 43 at St Budeaux.

CORNWALL CHANGES:

• SERVICE 12/A/B: Amendments will be made to early morning journeys between Plymouth and Callington to improve connections for commuters, which will also include the new 0450 from Royal Parade. The afternoon 1425 departure from Launceston will now depart at 1435. The 12B will also see the 0740 departure from Launceston to Bude depart at 0735.

Hot Topic leaflets containing all the information will also be available to pick up from our Royal Parade Travel Shop from Thursday 8th March.

By Citybus standards most of these are quite minor changes, just to improve timekeeping. The only one of real interest is the rerouting of the 42s through Seaton / Derriford Business Park. The route into Derriford is in red below. The other 42s will stick to the present route. As someone who works on this red route it could be quite useful to me, depending on the times which I have yet to check out. Full details on this change and the others mentioned above will appear in full in due course…

The estate has not been served for some time but there have been previous attempts to run proper buses down here as way back in 2008 the 42s were sent this way as illustrated by a then new 145…

It didn't last that long as very few people used it and most passengers demanded it reverted back to the main road!

When the estate was laid out it was clearly intended to have buses down here as there were plenty of raised kerb bus stops on the main road through.

(this was back in 2005, when it also snowed!)

First also tried to run their 17s through the estate back in 2006, also not to last that long

Then finally there was the brilliant, but sadly under used Taxibus

It remains to be seen how long the service will last this time. Hopefully it will stay. Planned improvements to the road past the ambulance station will provide better bus links out of Derriford which may well prove the key to making this new section last a bit longer.