Plymouth Citybus have today announced their service changes for the end of October…
Information about Devon routes from 30th October
We’re launching some new services on the behalf of Devon County Council – services 306, 315, 345 and 377 cover routes around Exeter, Okehampton and North West Devon. From commencement, single and return fares for both adults and children on these services will remain at current prices. We are currently working on day and week tickets for certain areas along the routes.
Please look out for the red buses that will be running these routes.
Devon Day Tickets will be accepted on our new Devon services.
More details of the changes are below:
| service | Details |
| 6/6A | Will provide two journeys each way on Sundays and Bank Holidays between Bude, Okehampton and Exeter. This will replace the current service operated by Stagecoach. Stagecoach will continue to operate the Monday to Saturday 6/6A timetable. |
| 306 | Launceston to Okehampton Four journeys each way Monday to Saturday between Launceston and Okehampton. This service will link into the railway station at Okehampton for train services to Exeter. From Launceston, this service will become the 176 to Bodmin Callywith College once in the morning Launceston to Okehamptonand once in the afternoon. This route has been put in place in conjunction with Devon County Council. |
| 315 | Exeter to Barnstaple via Crediton, Copplestone, North
Tawton, Winkleigh, Great Torrington and Bideford. Along with the 345, this
service provides a hourly journey between Exeter, Crediton and North
Tawton. This route has been put in place in conjunction with Devon County Council. |
| 345 | Exeter to Okehampton via Crediton, Copplestone, North
Tawton and Hatherleigh. Along with the 315, this service provides an hourly
journey between Exeter, Crediton and North Tawton. This route has been put in place in conjunction with Devon County Council. |
| 377 | Hourly service from Exeter to Chulmleigh via Crediton,
Copplestone, Lapford and Chawleigh. This route has been put in place in conjunction with Devon County Council. |
source: https://www.plymouthbus.co.uk/information-about-devon-routes-30th-october
Timetable changes for Plymouth from 30th October
There are some changes to our timetables from Sunday 30th October to improve the reliability of our services, matching ever changing traffic conditions.
Following your feedback, we’ve increased the number of journeys between the George Park and Ride and Derriford Hospital, and between Ham and the city centre.
We’ve also retimed some journeys to make it easier for people using connecting services or to improve their reliability.
| Service | details |
| 20 20A | All service 20 routes will be renumbered service 20A.
The 20A route will cover Royal Parade, Laira, Woodford, Plympton, Lee Mill and
Ivybridge. The majority of 20A services will also cover Langage Business
Park. The new service 20 will cover Royal Parade, Prince Rock, Billacombe Road, Sherford, Lee Mill and Ivybridge, then back to Royal Parade. There will also be 3 journeys each morning and evening from Sherford to Langage Industrial Estate, before continuing on to Lee Mill, etc. These routes have been put in place in conjunction with Devon County Council. |
| 28 | Being replaced by service 60 and 61 (Honicknowle and Eggbuckland Circular). Please see below. |
| 34 | Now extended to include George Park and Ride, reinstating the link between the George Park and Ride and Milehouse Park and Ride stops. Also retimed to better connect with the Service 70 between the Torpoint Ferry and Derriford Hospital. Together with the 42C there are now more buses running between the George Park and Ride and Derriford Hospital. |
| 35/A | There is an extra morning journey from Ham to the city centre in response to customer feedback. This route has also been retimed to improve the connection for passengers changing at the Cherry Tree to onward services. |
| 44/A | The first journey of the day and afternoon journeys between 2:30pm and 6pm have been retimed to improve reliability. |
| 60 61 | Honicknowle and Eggbuckland Circular Updating and replacing the current 28 and 61. Service 60 will run clockwise, starting from Stop A14 on Royal Parade and will then go to Milehouse Park and Ride, Brake Farm, Honicknowle, West Park, Transit Way Crownhill, Eggbuckland, Deer Park, Henders Corner, Mutley, Mayflower Street and Royal Parade. Service 61 is the same route but in reverse, from Royal Parade stop A18. This restores the link between Brake Farm and Royal Parade, plus there are now additional late evening journeys. The current 61 from Royal Parade to Milehouse will be replaced by the 60 from stop A14. |
| 70/A/B | Retimed to improve connections with the Torpoint Ferry and improve timekeeping into Plymouth City Centre. |
Source: https://www.plymouthbus.co.uk/timetable-changes-plymouth-30th-oct
So nothing massive this time but the new 60/61 looks like a fun day out…
"We are currently working on day and week tickets"
ReplyDeleteI wonder about the bus industry at times. Can you imagine Tesco saying "We are working on multipack pricing" when they announce a new store's opening date? All that sort of stuff is completed before public announcements are made; saying "we are working on prices" implies that "hey, we don't actually have any intention of introducing these products but we're pretending that we do just to minimise the inevitable complaints".
i suggested to citybus about the 34 to extend to the park and ride before the 101 was removed as i used that service alot to go to milehouse, im quite happy that they have now done this and i think will be welcomed... now all stagecoach need to do is sort the 1, noted today that 3 tavi buses was in derriford, 2 was for park and ride and 1 was for tavi itself with just before that was another one only to the park and ride... 3 vs 1 and that one to tavi was more busy as i think they been running more of them as the short???
ReplyDeleteWho thinks up all these timetable changes. Im sure if they better listened to customers and drivers feedback they would be able to provide a dynamic timetable which doesnt need changing a month later!
ReplyDeleteWhy also do they not do the most logical thing and keep the 61 as it is and replace the 28 as the said 60. Very confusing for customers and drivers alike.
The 60 will go clockwise and the 61 will go anticlockwise from Plymouth Royal Parade and will also do a sunday service 60/61
ReplyDeletei think the bus industry is going through a meltdown as a whole at the moment, especially for non commerical routes - there seems to be a huge rush for anything remotely tendered and nothing is really thought through with any detail - as for the 28/61 thing, i think making the whole route similar to the 50/51 makes sense. circular routes generally seem to run better - albeit with traffic being a pain especially down by transit way!! i just wish Citybus thought about the route planning a bit more - as said above by anon 18 Oct 18:21, very confusing for passengers and drivers. Similar to the situation with the 10/11 in cornwall not so long ago!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with grabbing all the tendered routes is as Wessex Bus in Bristol proved, if the council then changes it's mind at the next tender you're practically screwed and the business folds. Very dangerous and naïve way to go about running a bus company.
Delete@James - sounds very similar to the situation likely facing Oakley’s in Plymouth. A great shame, but the result of putting all of your eggs in to one basket I suppose.
Deletebut the Oakleys services lost to CityBus were Devon CC services - and they haven't put all their eggs in one basket at all. with quite a few operators picking up services. Cornwall have gone down that route, but that didnt affect Oakleys.
DeleteThank you for your reply Graham. I was referring to Oakleys having put all of their eggs in to one basket. Unless I’m mistaken, and aside from the small amount of private hire work, all of Oakleys service bus work is/was tendered, and with DCC now awarding those contracts to other operators, Oakleys have lost a huge amount of their work. I would say that is the very definition of having all of their eggs in one basket.
DeleteAh that makes sense! Agree with you there.
DeleteThey need to leave things alone. Instead of changing things every month, or two mins as it seems like they do it for fun.
ReplyDeleteJust to inconvenience passengers.
Like they get a kick out of it.
Yes if something doesn't work make changes, but they make changes for the sake of changes.
Seems to me like they have taken on too much work and the quality elsewhere is slipping.
"... just to inconvenience passengers" - and yet some of the 30th October changes are the direct result of passenger feedback, including more buses from George Park & Ride to Derriford Hospital, an extra morning journey from Ham and retimings to improve connections.
DeleteAgreed Julian. The 34 and the new 60/61 is all down to trying to fill in the gap on the Milehouse Park & Ride after it has been abandoned by Stagecoach. A recent staff 'meeting' at Derriford revealed a lot of staff wanting the Milehouse link reinstated and more buses to The George. This bit becoming even more important from November with discounts for staff travel coming in for Hospital staff.
DeleteOne thing I don't understand is why Stagecoach are abandoning Park & Rides in both Exeter & Plymouth. Yet Truro, Taunton, Bristol, Bath, Oxford, Portsmouth, Reading are all carrying on as normal???
DeleteOakley's are predominantly a coach operator though, service bus work was only a small part of their operation.
ReplyDeleteBut hasn't it also reduced its school coach contracts or did it regain the work on new contacts?
Deletebus transfers incoming - Solos from GNE and apparently E200s going to Exeter for new services.
ReplyDeletePlymouth are once again being shafted, e200's are going onto the new routes whilst the plymouth services get shabby & unreliable optare solos
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt the Optare Solos are ultimately for use on the “main” Plymouth services. I suspect they are either for the New North Devon routes which will then enable the E200s to come back to Plymouth or for use on either the smaller routes in Plymouth (13/17/18/39) or the Oakleys routes.
ReplyDeleteWhat Oakley routes
DeleteI Think what Anon 23 October 23:25 means is the former Oakleys operated routes which they took over recently. Services 55/56/59 and 98
Delete55/56/98
DeleteGo Devon Bus has been confirmed by GSW.
ReplyDeleteNow we have GCB, GDB, PCB. They've come up with that so fast even the logo looks odd...
would have been surprised at anything else really. If they hadn't promised to keep with the CityBus name when they took it over I expect they would have been Go Plymouth too.
DeleteSurely it would have made better sence to ditch the names Plymouth Citybus and Go Cornwall Bus and just rebrand the whole company as Go South West.
DeleteHow long have they agreed to keep Citybus nane thouth? I suspect Go Plymouth Bus will happen sometime.
DeleteGreat! Why does Go North East, Go South Coast, Go North West even East Yorkshire get good sounding names and nice looking liveries. Plymouth & the SW get rubbishy names, horrible branding/liveries even our interiors are muck! Look at East Yorskire/GNE X Lines interiors so smart!
DeleteIm not sure there was a predined period as such, but when they took over they made a big thing about keeping the Plymouth Citybus name going. When the other mains options at that time were probably First and Stagecoach where they would have almost certainly just merged within the national brand. At least First are now operating a much more local identity policy
Deleteagreed some of those other Go Ahead liveries are pretty good - but Go North West will almost certainly dissappear into an awful bland all over yellow. It remains to be seen how the new management at Go North East change things as they seemed to be repainting buses every other week and took route branding to the extreme without decent results to show for it by the sound of it.
DeleteWe can all assume 251 will be replaced by one for sure, but my opinion is that they could found on anything, but predominantly 55/56/98 (all run by two vehicles) and the 59. Then maybe two joining the 09 E200's which have seem to have found their home on the 13/17/18/39 with the current 64 plate ex-London E200 taking over the short MMC E200's in Plymouth and the said 20/70 plate short MMC's going to run the new routes in North Devon. But this is PCB so anything goes.
ReplyDelete65 plate E200 in Go Devon Bus branding at Milehouse, so looks like they're going up.
Deleteprobably for the same reason First South West dont just trade as that across the whole fleet?
ReplyDeleteOr "First South of England" as the new "local" business unit incorporating First South West Ltd, First Hampshire and Dorset Ltd, and First Beeline Buses Ltd is known as!
DeleteSeen that they are now group as First South England. Seems strange to have such a big area to cover. Hopefully the operators themselves will still remain as they are.
DeleteWell, First Beeline Buses (Berkshire) has remained as a separate legal entity all these years while being managed from Southampton, so I imagine First South West will as well. There is a common management team across all three companies now, albeit there is a vacancy for a Commercial Director.
DeleteInteresting to see Go Ahead officially changing the East Anglia, South Coast and South West logos. https://ibb.co/3vr2Qyg
ReplyDeleteEast Anglia, Go South Coast, Go North East and Go South West is the Operating Company as GSW head office is Plymouth, GSC head office is Poole.
ReplyDeleteThe bus industry regulator the Traffic Commissioner held a one day hearing on October 27 in Bristol following complaints about the reliability of Stagecoach Devon services the results of which will be known in due course. This includes the period of service operations during the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
ReplyDelete