Buses in Bournemouth - yellow buses and wilts and Dorset

[j789]

Slightly random topic for the west mids forum but is anyone well acquainted with current Bournemouth operations? I have visited there recently but was shocked at how much the bus routes had changed since I used to visit regularly 10+ years ago. I know that is a while and there were still fleetlines and VRs in operation but I am sure back then yellow buses kept their network around Bournemouth and Christchurch with wilts and Dorset running mainly county services. There appeared to be very little competition between the two. However, on my recent visit there seems to be a lot of competition between them now with yellow buses running to Poole on the same corridor as wilts and Dorset. Also wilts and Dorset seem to be running on routes in former yellow buses areas. I know both companies were bought by different owners but the way they used to co exist seemed better than the current system there.

[tc]

In a 10 year period bus use in Poole has gone up by 85%

In 2004: 5,331,268
In 2014: 9,819,782

Seems as though the competition and the changes are working!

The timetables and routes of Wilts & Dorset were quite complicated 10 years ago.

[PM]

In a 10 year period bus use in Poole has gone up by 85%

In 2004: 5,331,268
In 2014: 9,819,782

Seems as though the competition and the changes are working!

The timetables and routes of Wilts & Dorset were quite complicated 10 years ago.

And people moan deregulation and competition hasn't worked...

[Ian Hardy]

In September 1987 Badger-Vectis (a joint Badgerline & Southern Vectis) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_Vectis) started to operate routes in Poole in competition with W&D, Yellow Buses decided to rent depot space at Mallard Road to Badger-Vectis (thereby reducing the possibility of Badger-Vectis competing with Yellow Buses as they could be evicted from Mallard Road if they did).

If Badger-Vectis had not suddenly closed in early March 1988, W&D would have gone under as the competition had weakened their finances; the W&D management had only purchased the company from the NBC in June 1987 (Badgerline had also bid to buy W&D from the NBC). This episode created bad feeling between Wilts & Dorset and Yellow Buses (the management, the unions & the staff) which has continued to this day.

So the W&D management were then careful about competing with Yellow Buses too much, but then they sold W&D to Go Ahead in August 2003 and the management changed.

In 2004 Bournemouth Borough Council decided to sell Yellow Buses, Go-Ahead thought that they could do what they did in Brighton in September 1999 when they bought Brighton Blue Buses (the ex Brighton Corporation operation) and merged that operation with Brighton & Hove to create the excellent network that Go-Ahead has there.

So in December 2004 Go-Ahead restructured & simplified the W&D routes from Poole to Bournemouth introducing the More Bus M1 & M2 routes which extended to the East and North East side of Bournemouth which competed against Yellow Buses on the Boscombe & Charminster routes (Yellow Buses best routes). This prompted Yellow Buses to introduce competitive routes to Poole.

Bournemouth Borough Council did not like Go-Ahead's plan and instead sold a 90% share of Yellow Buses to Transdev in December 2005 (retaining a 10% share).

In July 2006 Transdev restructured the Yellow Buses routes and created a network with frequent commonly numbered routes on main roads with suffix letters for variations at the outer ends. Barry Doe (the timetables and rail fares expert) said this was the best bus service that Bournemouth had ever had and he had lived in Bournemouth all his life.

This is the situation that continues to this day, the only main change was that in March 2011 Transdev split up and Bournemouth Transport (along with London United) passed to RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens), the Paris "Corporation" state owned bus company.

[j789]

Well it certainly seems positive changes have happened. I think one of the main changes was the lymington to Bournemouth service which I think used to be routes 121-124. They are now the X1 and x2 but they seem to go a different route around the Christchurch and mudeford area. There was also a bus that used to run through Christchurch to ring wood but I guess that got chopped as it didn't seem to carry many people when I went on it in past years, on occasions a VR would be used on that route which was great down the country lanes.
The route to Poole must have one of the highest buses per hour ratio in the country I'd imagine now, as whilst waiting in Bournemouth square for my X1/2 I counted 15 Poole bound buses from both operators in the pace of 20 mins. There were at least 8 m1/m2s.