Another Quality County!
No sooner had fbb penned his paeon of praise for Devon's timetable booklets than chum and former colleague Peter whizzed off an email reminding the old bloke that Hampshire still produced its printed material.
Now Hampshire is a BIG county stretching from Aldershot in the east to Fordingbridge in the west and from almost Newbury in the north until you fall into the wet stuff in the south, see!
But, as with Devon, do not expect to find comprehensive public transport details for Portsmouth ...
... or Southampton.
For those who are aged (like fbb) please note that Bournemouth and Christchurch ...
... used to be in Hampshire, but they were handed over to Dorset in 1974 and the unitary now includes Poole as well.
Looking for "Hampshire Public Transport" in Google, you are immediately confronted with this:-
We will look at the second heading in a while, but first we turn to "My Journey Hampshire". For a number of years, fbb ran a bus timetable web site for Havant, but he was sacked (with thanks for loyal service!) a few years back when Hampshire created its own Journey Planner.
Under the pretty (and friendly) heading is the button for the journey planner ...
... and clicking appropriately, the JP appears. It is probably best to ignore the over-optimistic text that appears below the JP panel!
Bus travel is more convenient than ever before, using technology to make your journey quicker and more comfortable. Tickets can be bought online in advance, or you can use your debit or credit card to pay on the day. Most buses now have free Wifi and on-board next stop announcements and they benefit from dedicated lanes to get ahead of the queues.
Learn about the changes that our local bus companies have made to make your journey more convenient on the Rediscover Bus Travel section of My Journey.
So type in your chosen places and you are directed to the best (i.e. fastest) offer from public transport plus appropriate routes by car.
Here a caveat. fbb thinks that this is all drawn from Google Maps and not from Traveline. So you get simple answers but sometimes answers based on Google technology and NOT public transport technology.
Here is Havant to Portsnouth:-
Seven minutes by Southern train looks pretty sharp. Check the map and you see why!
According to Google, Cosham IS Portsmouth!
Another good reason for NOT using Journey Planners! To be fair, most sample journeys planned seemed to work OK.
The above is a trip from Havant to the fbb's former "pied a terre" at Seaview, Isle of Wight. Car via ferry ...
... train, hovercraft and bus as one of the two alternatives.
So not perfect, but simple enough for an average user to understand and far better than Traveline which gives far too many options.
So far, so good. But what about timetables?
Which ever "route" you take through the web site(s) you will eventually end up at this list:-
Alresford, Alton, Winchester Travel Guide
Andover Travel Guide
Basingstoke Map with frequency guide
Eastleigh Map with timetables
Farnborough, Fleet & Bordon Travel Guide
Havant & Petersfield Travel Guide
New Forest Travel Guide
Romsey Map with timetables
All the above are available IN PRINT. Those marked Travel Guide are timetable books and fbb will review a sample in tomorrow's blog.
Romsey and Eastleigh offer the next best thing, being a fold out leaflet but with full timetables. Here is just a sample of part of the leaflet.
Even infrequent services are shown as full timetables.
Basingstoke is less satisfactory, however. The map is excellent (extract only shown below) ...
... and there is even a noble attempt to explain what happens in the town centre!
But, sadly, here are no timetables, just frequency guides. Frankly, for a busy and expanding town, this just isn't good enough.
Actually, there is one full timetable, namely ...
... the Wednesday only 54.
Basingstoke deserves a proper timetable book!
And it is a proper timetable book which fbb will review tomorrow.
Alsi in the "timetables and maps" list is this entry:-
Hampshire Map and Frequency Guide
We have seen extracts from the excellent network map above (Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth) and the map is a splendid production. fbb is never entirely sure that a very sumnmarised frequency guide of of much use to man or beast ...
... but we are told, sadly, that this production is only available on line. Although there are adequate maps in the varioyus local guides, the only way to get an overview is to have the whole county in your hand. Not publishing the complete network map is short sighted in view of the County's expressed desire to encourage bus usage.
Who would not relish a trip to The Wallops?
Snippet
fbb disobeyed an instruction!
Mrs fbb had an appointment yesterday with the "hip" people at Exeter Hospital. It was hardly dynamic as "the man" said and did almost exactly what the other man did the previous week at Ottery St Mary. We are praying that her condition is so bad (it really is bad) that she can become a "Priority" case.
It was whilst waiting that fbb was a naugty boy.
Despite warnings to the contrary, he took a photo.
Make it "in accordance WITH"
Make it "hospital's policies".
Maybe the compiler of said notice should have completed the triplet by writing "area's".
Poor mark's. Take a half hour detention and do your correction's!
Next Hampshire booklet blog : Friday 11th February
Hampshire only produced a map in Basingstoke, as Stagecoach used to provide comprehensive leaflets.
ReplyDeleteNow, of course, they don't . . . so perhaps Hants CC should review their offering . . . or maybe they are, and it's at the end of the list??
BTW, FBB . . . still waiting . . .).
A while back, I was interested to pick up timetable books from Hertfordshire, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset. They all cover relatively small geographical areas and so you need several books to travel far. The problem was actually getting any of them. They were mostly short print runs and when they were gone they were gone. As a librarian in Guildford admitted Surrey books were like gold dust.
ReplyDeleteI found County Halls often had a full set, even if for one I was advised to visit the members lounge!
Today I pick up the Devon books and have found a certain museum which usually has all 6 available plus the map, rail and other local transport.
They are still great, but I use on-line to both plan and to confirm today's travel.
The HCC books were a fantastic resource when I planned days out as a teenager, as long as they were up to date.
ReplyDeleteThe county-wide maps used to be available in print (I still have a couple of old ones), but I guess there just isn't the demand to justify the print costs
It is the design costs as much as print, given that print to order is possible e.g. home, office, or lulu which will perfect bind the result.
ReplyDeleteFbb criticises someone else for errors with grammar and punctuation!
ReplyDelete