Sunday 18th August 2024
Enticed by the attractive bus timetable booklet I mentioned in a recent blog, I took a day trip over to the Isle of Wight a few weeks ago and was quickly reminded why Southern Vectis is a well deserved award winning bus company. I highlighted how the company exudes quality in a blog last August (S is for Southern Vectis) but these points are so fundamental to a successful bus company they bear repetition – other bus companies could do well to learn from them.
1. The timetable booklet
The timetable booklet itself is a model of best practice. It has a colourful network map as well as detailed plans of each major town so there’s no doubting where bus routes go (too often timetable books omit town plans leaving you with no idea where buses go – Cornwall I’m looking at you).
Details are given of what’s changed since the last timetable as well as comprehensive details of the range of rover type tickets. There are 16 “great places to visit” over four pages with details of how to “get there by bus” with 20 pages devoted to the Company’s range of leisure services including the Island Coaster, Summer Links and open-top bus routes. And, of course, every bus route is listed, complete with colour coding to match their inclusion on the network map with a full timetable.
You couldn’t want anything more from a bus timetable and it’s all laid out in a very attractive easy to read format and despite having 104 pages easily fits into a pocket for ease of carrying around.
2. The network
The Island’s bus network is easy to understand and is well honed to cater for demand, with ten minute frequencies on the busiest corridors between Newport and Cowes and Newport and Ryde, including alternate journeys taking slightly different routes to serve a wider area. Coordinated frequencies of four buses an hour apply between both Newport and Ryde to both Sandown and Shanklin.
There’s now four buses an hour between Newport and East Cowes and a half hourly frequency between Newport and Yarmouth/Freshwater/Alum Bay and between Newport and Sandown via Arreton. An hourly frequency links Ryde and Bembridge and the same to East Cowes with less frequent timetables between Newport and Alum Bay via Brighstone and Ventnor via Chillerton.
Good frequencies continue into the evenings and on Sundays and there are night buses till late on Friday and Saturday nights between Newport and Cowes, Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor. There’s even an extensive service all day and evening on 25th December.
For a population of 141,600 to a relative low density across the Island’s 147 square miles, albeit supplemented by thousands of tourists and visitors, the bus network and frequencies offer excellent coverage.
3. The buses
Aside from a dozen Optare Solos used on fringe services, the Island’s bus network is in the hands of double deck buses (ADL, Scania and Volvo) offering passengers excellent comfort and capacity as well as unrivalled views across the Island.
It’s a measure of how successful the network has been at generating passengers in that it wasn’t that long ago both high profile routes 1 and 9 between Newport and Cowes and Newport and Ryde (respectively) were operated by single deck buses but both routes are now in the hands of busy, well used double decks.
4. Investment in new buses
More than that, route 1 has just recently been upgraded with a fleet of seven brand new ADL Enviro400 buses with the most comfortable seats you’ll find anywhere. The rest of the fleet, although varying in age, is well maintained and looked after giving the impression of a modern fleet. I hear more new buses are destined for the Island in the future including battery-electric buses thanks to a successful bid for ZEBRA funding.
5. Good value tickets
The current £2 maximum single fare has obviously changed the dynamics of pricing, but before that, as well as when it eventually ends, Southern Vectis was in the vanguard of offering a range of easy to understand tickets aimed at the tourist as well as value-for-money tickets for residents able to buy longer lasting bundles and period tickets.
There are through Rail Link tickets between the Island Line and route 3 to/from Ventnor and there’s a deal with Hovertravel and National Express to provide a joint ticket from the Island to any destination on the mainland,
Aside from the subsidised £2 temporary arrangement, Southern Vectis aren’t necessarily cheap, but high quality, well used products and consumer services seldom are.
6. Great staff
It can be challenging driving buses on busy roads with holiday traffic which are often very narrow in places where vehicles struggle to pass each other, as well as constant enquiries from tourists unfamiliar with the geography of the Island but I’ve always found Southern Vectis drivers to be excellent at their job showing great patience and positivity. It comes over how much they enjoy their work.
7. Excellent promotion
You can’t miss the promotional mesages for Southern Vectis at major interchange points on the Island, particularly Newport, Ryde and Yarmough.
Large colourful maps on walls, clear signage, information easily accessible all go towards making the service easy to use.
Bus stop flags all have coloured route numbers/logos and destinations clearly marked with the name of the stop so there’s no confusion of where you are, with audio announcements inside buses too.
Bus timetable booklets and other promotional booklets with details of the Island’s leisure services are widely available on the Island, on board buses…
… as well as at ferry terminals on the mainland in Southsea, Portsmouth and Southampton.
And everywhere you go you find people studying the timetable book. If only other bus companies could see this too.
8. Travel shops
To complement those excellent promotional messages and information provision, well used Travel shops can be found in Newport…
… Ryde …
… and Yarmouth all with helpful members of staff.
The Travel Shop at Ryde’s recently revamped bus station/interchange is in a new location too and looks very smart.
9. High profile bus routes for the leisure market
There’s been a long tradition on the Island for Southern Vectis to operate routes aimed at the tourist and leisure markets, not least open-top bus routes.
Most famous is the Needles Breezer which runs half hourly with three buses providing probably Britain’s most hair raising ride up the face of the cliffs overlooking Alum Bay to the Needles Battery, situated 250 feet above sea level.
The bus has exclusive access along the narrow road which leads up to the Battery…
… including two hairpin bends and what I reckon is the most precarious bus stop to wait at, especially on a windy day.
The Needles Breezer continues from Alum Bay on a circular route taking in Yarmouth and Freshwater. As a treat for those reading this online, here are a couple of video clips showing just how wonderful the views are.
Open-top buses also provide a Downs Breezer circular tour taking in the north east corner of the Island running roughly hourly from Ryde via Bembridge, Sandown and Wootton.
Another popular route with tourists is the long Island Coaster route which, as its name implies, runs along the coast on a spectacular three hour journey from Ryde all the way round to Yarmouth via Bembridge, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventnor, Blackgang Chine, Freshwater, Alum Bay and Totland twice a day.
The Shanklin Shuttle provides a half hourly circular link from the railway station to the Esplanade.
10. Innovations and traditions
Although in many ways the Island is a very traditional place to visit and the bus network has now been stable for many years, Southern Vectis has shown it can trial new services and try out new developments. It was one of the first bus companies to offer Tap&Go including daily and weekly capping and also had very attractively priced bundles of day tickets aimed at giving residents a discount compared to visitors when it had smartcards.
A couple of years or so ago a new Summer Links route began linking Newport with Yarmouth via a new tourist attraction at Tapnell Farm. It includes many attractions for the whole family including an Aqua Park, and of course the animals.
And finally the Island’s long history of bus operation is captured in the Isle of Wight Bus and Coach Museum housed in the former Southern Vectis bus garage in Ryde which is well worth a visit, and the company is also proud of its heritage and keeps “The Old Girl” in tip top condition in its Newport bus garage.
That’s why I like Southern Vectis so much.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS with Summer Su extras.
Comments on today’s blog are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.
BusAndTrainUser 
Southern Vectis is indeed an admirable operation. It does have some advantages bestowed by its unique (save for the IOM) island geography. BUT other operators who have abdicated all responsibility for providing any information by way of printed timetables or enquiry offices could learn a lot.,,..,
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Absolutely – loads to like, particularly the staffed travel offices. It’s easy to see why many bus companies (big ones in particular) have seen these as easy targets when they are in cost-cutting mode. But anyone can cut costs: there’s no skill involved – you just do it! A ‘real’ bus manager should know how to get better – and growing – revenue from an asset and experienced staff which, once cut, may be very hard to replace.
If I could, with some trepidation, suggest a slight improvement to the SV offer, it would be to make the map give some idea of the frequencies of the routes: maybe thicker lines, or route numbers in circles, for 6ph (or better). It would cut down the need to keep flicking from map to timetable.
The Needles route is truly amazing – sort of ‘bus meets Alton Towers’ adventure.
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Really great to see in this day and age. It must benefit to an extent from being on a self contained island away from certain outside influences but that’s not to take anything away from how they go about their business
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I visited the IoW earlier this year and I too was impressed with SV’s offer, particularly given the high level of car ownership and low density residential areas which would be deemed poor bus territory in pretty much any other location on these isles.
I’m glad SV does what it does but I think comparing SV to other bus companies ignores the fact that a virtual monopoly for bus travel exists on the island. It allows SV to invest in travel shops and late night buses and there must be a large element of cross-subsidy. If there were sustained and effective competition then one suspects SV would be forced to look at its cost base and act like any other company in that position.
Dan Tancock
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It does tend to indicate that deregulation does not work, The IOW has the problem of big seasonal variation in passengers numbers as well
If you start cutting back service then you drive the passengers way. The services need to be seen as a network and not individual routes
If you take the hone counties you can see how the bus services have been decimated by the constant cut backs and that has driven the passengers away and who can blame them
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I doubt there’s cross subsidy in the sense of profitable routes funding loss making routes. It’s mostly a network of simple core links between towns running at differing frequencies as appropriate for demand on each.
However there is probably a good recognition of benefits of providing services at marginal times. That maintaining the network through the winter helps foster year-round demand which also increases revenue during the profitable summer. That a good level of evening service being available helps to drive daytime demand too. It would be good if more operators realised these things
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| I doubt there’s cross subsidy in the sense of profitable routes funding
| loss making routes.
Replace ‘routes’ with ‘journeys’ and I think that’s where the cross-subsidy is: the profitable daytime journeys subsidise the unprofitable early morning, late evening and all day winter journeys which in turn provide the network benefit that attracts users and helps to keep those daytime journeys profitable.
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There are actually two other small operators on the Island, in Ventnor and Yarmouth, but deregulation has worked very well here because a quality Operator has clearly put off any competition so far. Southern Vectis have always kept ahead of their game, and as mentioned, even providing Christmas Day services in contrast to the very deregulated TfL.
De-regulation was not meant to be a permanent battleground with “bread vans” chasing each other about forever, but a move away from a heavily subsidised NBC to quality commercial operators who knew that someone else could always step in at any time should they fail the travelling public. The Souter’s Stagecoach, Delaines, Ensigns and Lynxs to name but a few have shown what can be done. Lest we forget, SVOC itself took competition to the mainland in 1986, and the residents of many parts of Hampshire are still enjoying the results under Bluestar.
On my last IOW visit, several years ago during the Winter, I noticed a pleasingly high proportion of female Drivers, and usually (yes, there are exceptions), a better ride and more consideration for passengers as a result.
Terence Uden
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Except lots of minibuses running around was exactly how Nicholas Ridley envisioned bus deregulation so a bit of a revisionist observation here, if I may say so. Of course, deregulation was never going to result in Ridley’s premonition because he ignored that economic principle of economies of scale and companies buying out the competition to achieve this.
Dan Tancock
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Nicholas Ridley probably knew less about buses than Margaret Thatcher, but took his advice from the well respected Transport Professor John Hibbs. What they DID know was that the “money-gobbling-into-a-black- hole” NBC was costing the Tax Payer ever more each year to provide ever fewer services against a backdrop of falling passenger numbers. The mindset was simply managing decline, with any commercial sense non- existent.
It was known that after initial “bus wars” things would settle, and although nobody had or claimed to have a crystal ball, the less state interference the better. Thus I very much stand by my “revisionist observations”
Terence Uden
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| De-regulation was not meant to be a permanent battleground with “bread
| vans” chasing each other about forever
I think Nicholas Ridley would disagree with that statement. He’s on record as saying that his ideal was one-man, one-bus owner-operators replacing the company model.
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Keyboard slip….”Very regulated TfL”
TU
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Different markets etc. But it’s hard to comprehend that Southern Vectis is owned by the same group as Go North East. It’s night and day the quality of operation.
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Possibly has something to do with the style of management.
Go North East had very combative senior management for a while who appeared to go out of their way to cause trouble. I don’t think it did the company any favours in the long run.
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It would be very interesting to see if there’s any local support for bus franchising on the Isle of Wight – I have not detected any after doing an internet search of local politicians and MPs. But with a quality bus service provided commercially and profitably by Southern Vectis who continually and relentlessly improve the produce they are providing, I am not surprised. Compare that to to the rather sad and depressing continual round of cuts and retrenchment inflicted on the local communities in the cities of northern England by the major operators there and wonder why franchising is so in vogue in those regions.
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In the old PTE areas there has been a sustained campaign over 30 years supporting franchising, often with very weak or invalid arguments. The district councils have responded with poor support for bus priority and the operators could only respond with managed decline, Every attemtp at boosting growth was faced with negative publicity from the PTE. The PTE, now WYCA, staff will get good salary increases from franchising so they are hardly honest brokers. Bus users will get higher council tax bills and declining bus services like the end of NBC days. Ray Wilkes
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MP’s/politicians will be more engaged in solving the island’s more pressing transport problems: the high fares and unreliable service of the ferries.
All of them.
Including the floating bridge.
The Railway is also not performing to expectation: one of the new Vivarail D-trains trains already being cannibalised for parts (and wheel wear is more of a problem than expected), which makes the aspiration to be running a more regularly timed two train service a challenge:, remains to be seen if the next round of Network Rail infrastructure improvements planned will increase the reliability.
Good to see reasonable Sunday services on some of the more rural routes (a real gap a few years ago).
The next frontier would be for Vectis to further strengthen the service on existing routes to deliver something akin to Swiss Railway’s “Takt” timing principal, or at least filling the major daytime gaps on the more rural routes (e.g. route 12, if not always then at least put on a special more frequent service for the Wolverton Garden Fair weekend).
MilesT
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I always enjoy traveling by bus on the IOW. And I agree Southern Vectis do a very good job. Especially the new tap and on and off with the phone. Only small item is now and again stop names on the bus don’t match with Google Maps.
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Just to clarify, the “Summer Links” route wasn’t new new. It was a renaming of route 27, similarly to the Needles Breezer formerly being route 42
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It should be remembered that, about 10 (?) years ago, SV had a good hack at their network, which, TBF, could be traced back to Tilling days!!
Many occasional routes were withdrawn, and there were howls of pain at that time. What is impressive is that the base network introduced then is still pretty much the same … each new timetable, apart from seasonal variations, is barely changed from the predecessor. That rather shows that losing the deep rural routes was the way to go.
I find it interesting that it seems to be GoAhead companies that do well with timetables … IOW; Bournemouth; Oxford … although I wish Brighton & Crawley would return to books instead of leaflets. As many companies now seem to settle on 2-3 dates each year for timetable changes, the argument of books becoming out of date is specious.
Maybe the new(ish) management at Stagecoach will see the light??
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| I find it interesting that it seems to be GoAhead companies that do well
| with timetables
Unfortunately it seems to be only the ‘southern’ operations which do that; trying to find printed timetables in the Group’s North East homeland is a waste of time nowadays.
“Everything’s online!“, of course.
I was surprised this weekend to pick up a rather professional brochure (“Northumberland. Beautiful by Bus”) for Arriva Northumbria’s X18 Newcastle – Berwick via the coast route, which includes a full timetable and a route map (dated 2024). It was amongst other tourist leaflets on one of the paid promo stands at a museum, so I assume that they’ll be distributed across the region.
I didn’t think Arriva did things like that anymore, and I hope there’ll be more.
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Southern Vectis is an example of commercial best practice for the more tardy big groups.
For those interested in franchising I would suggest Jersey and Guernsey as a model for shire LTAs.
The Isle of Man is an example of direct operation by a public body.
These islands are worthy of further study. Their bus operators cater for residents and visitors alike. In too many places on the mainland tendered services are the transport of last resort, and visitors aren’t considered at all.
Peter Brown
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It would appear that Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority are proposing the Jersey Model for their franchising. Practical bus franchising – the Jersey model [HCT Group, 2016, PDF]
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Were, surely?
2016 was eight years ago and HCT has long since collapsed into the ether…
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From Bus reform – Have your say on how buses are run in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Consultation document (PDF)
Yes HCT are long gone from Jersey but…
Intriguingly, Tower Transit UK was, for a while, the parent company of Cambridgeshipe’s Whippet, before the demerger/restructuring, where Whippet became a subsidiary of Ascendal Group.
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Fully agree we have best practice demonstrated admirably in Brum with Rotala with its Diamond Bus West Midlands also setting the Gold Standard in Bus Operations across the West Midlands County.
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Several people have commented on the contrast between the best of Go Ahead at SV compared to some more lacklustre operations elsewhere.
Living in the Diamond South East area the same seems to apply to Rotala. They’re consistently appalling in every aspect of their operation down here. It always seems incredible that companies with the same owner can vary so much rather than sharing best practice.
surfblue
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Pity other parts of Go Ahead don’t follow this best practice – even within Go South Coast! Service publicity in Swindon is very poor, individual glossy timetable leaflets but without route descriptions or maps, so it is impossible to work out the route followed! And no network map either. Yet the Bournemouth/Poole area does an excellent book. Mystifying.
17A
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Bournemouth/Poole has just a few(!) more tourists than Swindon!
Nonetheless I do agree that a Swindon book would be useful.
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If you only consider day time then I would agree but the service is poor to non-existent in the evenings. Many is the time I’ve arrived in Cowes in the early evening, got as far as Newport on the very good Number 1 service and had to walk the last mile or so with luggage because the wait for the next bus was over an hour!
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Bit baffled by this comment. Obviously you can’t necessarily catch a bus to every square inch of the island at every conceivable time, but overall I seriously doubt you could find a better evening service level in any rural county anywhere. The main routes are hourly or better (some even every 15 minutes) throughout the evening, and buses run until after midnight 7 nights a week.
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That’s not what the timetable shows, It is about every 15 minutes up to about 20:00 then every half hour
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Newport to Ryde is every 15 minutes until 22:10 then 22:40, 23:10, 23:40, 00:35.
Newport to Cowes is every 15 minutes until 23:15 then 23:35, 00:05, 00:35
Even on Sundays both of these routes are every 15 minutes until at least 21:00 and last departures are after midnight.
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Residents need to be encouraged to travel just as much as visitors and are equally deserving of decent publicity.
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They do, but residents do have a good understanding of the geography and therefore would be more able to understand an online timetable for example or to work out which route leaflet they need to pick up in a way that a visitor would struggle with.
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They do, however a resident will usually have the geographic knowledge to help them make sense of an online timetable or work out which route leaflet they need to pick up,
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Nice to see Go South Coast keeping up the traditions of a north/south divide in the area publicity. Even 30 years ago under Wilts & Dorset you had that sort of difference. Bournemouth (the now More branded area) always did a nice booklet for their services whilst Salisbury (the now Salisbury Reds branded area) always relied on single leaflets (even though then it was a comprehensive range). Never entirely clear why that difference persisted but at least they are consistent even when extra operations are added.
Dwarfer
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First of all, having experienced Southern Vectis within the last year, I can only agree with Roger’s comments. It’s a first class operation with a commitment to quality running through it. It is part of the Go South Coast empire which is, in itself, very impressive in its approach. GSC isn’t perfect as some have mentioned – not least, taking on both Bournemouth and Southampton has stretched the management and fleet but still much better than many other operations.
SV clearly benefits from having a monopoly, the geography and the holiday trade. The latter is exploited (in a good way) to help sustain a comprehensive network. That holiday aspect is crucial and really does support the retention of travel offices and the provision of network books. You wouldn’t be able to justify that in the South Wales valleys, I’d expect. In the past, such offices were sustainable with the sale of coach tickets and holidays – a market and income stream that has moved online. Nonetheless, you still have major operators in tourist hotspots who have taken the opportunity to close relatively low cost facilities (Stagecoach in Paignton… I’m talking about you)
Also, it’s noteworthy that some posters have seized upon this monopolistic position to suggest that it somehow undermines the case for deregulation. Let’s not forget that even in those halcyon days when comprehensive timetables were produced and every town had a travel office, passenger figures were thundering through the floor.
The lesson is that operators need to do what is right for their market. That’s what Southern Vectis do. Others could well learn a lesson (whilst First having learnt it in the South West are seemingly intent on forgetting it)
BW2
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| The lesson is that operators need to do what is right for their market.
This. A million times this.
Which also means that imposing control on, say, Truro from Bristol (or, worse, Aberdeen) is doomed to failure. So is sending some whizzkid from HQ travelling around from depot to depot shuffling everything about to reduce PVR by one, renumbering everything and altering long-standing routes because it looks good on Google Maps (recognise anything, Stagecoach ‘Simplibus’ creator?). And so on.
What the bus industry needs is what the railway industry also needs: local managers brought up in the industry so they understand it, given the freedom to manage and innovate in the ways that work best for the local markets they’ve come to understand, rather than people kited in from outside to make changes who then move on to the next big thing after a year or so as is all too often the case nowadays.
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It all sounds great, and well done to the present managers at SV. Personally, I haven’t set foot on the island for years – but I still have great memories journeys no longer possible – of wandering round Porchfield on a Bristol MW on Route 35, of a ride on the 13 with the bushes brushing the side of the LH through Newchurch, RE rides via Havenstreet on the 3 or over the high road to Niton on the 11… humming along the Military Road on a VR or FLF on the 46, hourly then…!
Those were the days!
Anthony Holden
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There’s almost nothing to disagree with, either in Roger’s post (thanks Roger!) or in the comments so far. I last visited the Isle of Wight in late 2020 and came away with a good impression – a clean, well-presented modern fleet, drivers with good customer service skills, a fairly comprehensive network. All in all, a well-run operation.
£10.50 for a 24-hour ticket may seem quite reasonable for spending a day riding around the island (and making sure not to use the Breezer services). But for someone making a couple of fairly short out-and-back trips, spending up to £10.50 is not such good value. Worth noting that the SV 24 hour ticket costs double the price of the daily cap in London. Even the SV child ticket costs more than London’s adult daily cap. Interestingly, I vaguely recall that in NBC days, a Southern Vectis day rover was considerably more expensive in the summer months than in winter.
Does the Southern Vectis timetable book now include details of the services in the Yarmouth area and Ventnor which are provided by other operators? I don’t recall them being included in 2020, but maybe that has since changed? (And if you need to use those services, are they included in the £10.50 ticket, or do you have to pay separately for them?)
Southern Vectis are indeed fortunate that The Solent provides a natural protective barrier against any neighbouring operator making incursions into their territory. I vaguely recall that when SV launched Solent BlueLine, Southampton City Transport planned to launch a counter-attack on the Isle of Wight but it came to nothing. I also vaguely recall a legal case which ruled that SV had to allow competitors to use Newport bus station – but competition on the island has been quite limited. On the other hand, SV does have to contend with seasonal peaks and troughs in demand.
Malc M
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I seem to recall SV single decks being required on service 1 to be able to serve the ferry terminal at Cowes, featuring a 90° turn through an archway in a shopping area. Was that stopped to be able to improve capacity on the rest of the route with double deckers or was there a healh & safety aspect to ending this practice?
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You are not wrong . . . as a former bus driver I was in awe at the way SVOC drivers went through the arch . . . although there was sufficient green paint on the walls to show that some drivers didn’t quite manage it !!
The frequency on Route 1 was as high as 6 minutes at times (with 29-seat E200 buses) . . . now it is every 10 minutes with deckers. I daresay the cost of replacing body panels has something to do with it . . . a shame, though.
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How many other areas of similar population get such excellent services 7 days a week from early to late
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We are never going to “un-invent” the internet, and that is likely where most of our information will continue to come from (such as reading Roger’s blogs).
But there is still something nice about a good paper timetable. You don’t need to find a USB port to keep it alive. It makes a nice souvenir, and who knows, spotted on a mantelpiece at home a few weeks later might encourage a return trip – all in a way idly scanning the web might not.
CH, Oxford
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Go-Ahead travel shops in Crawley and Brighton have left me humble with admiration. A speculative and gratuitous trip from Brighton to Eastbourne on Route 28 – the booklet had all I needed such as plans of Lewes and Hailsham. My collection of booklets all neat and held together by elastic bands and now in a box in sight of my bed. Go-Ahead publicity folk – my superstar heroes. The Solent however is expensive to cross but I did it free one day – 20/02/1997 the SWT “all tickets free day”. Drinks in Sandown then home via the Woking – Heathrow coach service and visiting the Euston concourse with a free Travelcard got at Woking. Ink printed APTIS stock which might last in my archives unlike thermal printed tickets which shall all fade eventually! Sadly the free coach trips between Woking and Heathrow were at night but the coach crew was surprised at my quick visit to the airport.
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Although I am no fan of Go Ahead compared to the excellent Rotala here in Brum. I have to say this is an excellent piece of analysis from Roger that apprises Southern Vects in a honest & forthright manner to be respected by us. Roger is much appreciated by us all for excellent blog that I for one constantly look forward too .
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Of course in NBC days and before, SV maximised revenue from the summer season by increasing fares at the start of the season then reducing them, albeit not back to the previous level, at the end of the season.
Interestingly, I just looked at a 2009 SV timetable and the day ticket was £10.00
NT
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I don’t visit the island as much anymore, having been a very regular visitor in the 2010s. It’s pleasing to read that the bus services are even better than they were then.
I thought then, and still do now, that it’s sad that although you can get a through rail ticket from anywhere in GB to Cowes,(which includes the bus shuttle in Southampton) there’s no equivalent to Plusbus that will then take on to Newport or other island destinations.
Back in the day the bus route covering Bembridge used to suffer appalling delays in the summer due to the islands endemic traffic congestion. At least now, bus tracker apps give the waiting passenger some confidence that a bus might actually turn up sometime!
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Not only an excellent blog but also superb photographs and video. Plenty of interesting comments, too. Thank you all.
Steven Saunders
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I haven’t been to the island for many years, it’s bus service never had the lure of the other parts of the UK as they were provided by buses with archaic Eastern Coachworks bodys.
In those times the timetable was 50p, however it covered all bus operations, trains, ferries, hovercraft and even mainland train services to Portsmouth. It also had Rover fares enabling easy comparison with current day prices and products.
How ironic nowadays I obtained timetables for free on the mainland, although they don’t have an end date or school term dates. Products and fares aren’t clearly advertised as previously. I’ve encountered these incidious developments in Brighton too.
Those old timetables reveal Travel Centres offered the similar range of services that One Stop Travel used to in Brighton.
Opening the timetable, before you reach numbered routes the reader is subjected to 20 pages of a hard sell for Breezers and Open Top buses that require premium products previously included in the Rover. As mentioned in other feedback day tickets have remained relatively constant, however longer term freedom tickets used by Islanders have shot up in price.
The Isle of Wight would be an ideal testbed for the future of bus operation where costs and subsidy could be openly used to provide easy to understand multi modal products also facilitating an ageing population to travel freely for their personal well being.
John Nicholas
Forced by friends to travel on Bristol VR at Imber who were incredulous it was the same age as a Mark 2 Metrobus!
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if only TfL could learn the lessons. PS – when’s Byford’s London bus map coming?
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Printed timetables and information desks? Has no one told us we all get our information subliminally through apps that work perfectly even when you’re 200 miles from a phone mast? And as for evening and Sunday services, don’t they know we bus users are all tucked up in bed by 18.30 and don’t go out on Sundays? I suppose the Isle of Wight always was behind the times…
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IOW would be the perfect place to set up a proper urban/rural integrated transport authority including the railway.
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As a regular visitor to Ventnor, my only gripe about the excellent bus service on the Isle of Wight, is the lack of “connectivity” between the service from Ventnor to Shanklin and the train departures. On several occasions I have travelled on a bus arriving at the station whist the train departs as the bus pulls in. This inevitably means a lost hour for the ferry back to Portsmouth.
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