Wessex Bus

Wessex Bus also simply known as Wessex, is a trading name of Flights Hallmark used on bus services across the West of England.

History
In 2007 the bus side of the South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach was sold to Rotala PLC subsidiary Flights Hallmark trading as Wessex Connect. The sale included 68 buses for the price of £1.26 million and the right to operate the routes they were used on for a further £600,000. The takeover was completed in stages and everything was finalized by the 31st March 2008. It was stated at the time that the assets being acquired had an annual turnover of £4.2 million pounds. The business was slowly rebranded as Wessex Connect, however the majority of the vehicles that Rotala purchased stayed in South Gloucestershire livery. They were gradually disposed of as and when Rotala were able to replace them with suitable low floor vehicles. Most of the low floor vehicles from the SGBC fleet were painted white and ended up with Rotala group company Central Connect.

During September 2011 Wessex moved into a new depot which was a specially converted former timber yard on St Andrew's Road in Avonmouth. The move allowed Wessex to set up a new regional head office for the south west operations where all the maintenance requirements could be met. Their previous depot, which was owned by South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach, was operating at near full capacity following the growth of both businesses.

Routes
17: Staple Hill - Longwell Green (Via Kingswood) Sundays Only 84: Yate - Wotton-Under-Edge (Via Charfield) 86: Wotton-Under-Edge - Longwell Green (Via Yate) 178: Bristol - Bath (Evenings only) 329: Yate - Bristol City Centre (Sundays Only) 482/483: Chipping Sodbury - Cribbs Causeway 501: Avonmouth - Abbey Wood M.O.D 502: Shirehampton - UWE, Frenchay Campus 505: Bower Ashton - Southmead Hospital 506: Southmead Hospital - Create Centre 507: Southmead Hospital - Kingswood/Keynsham 508: Sea Mills - Southmead 511: Stockwood - Knowle - Bedminster 512: Bedminster - Totterdown - Redcliffe - Broadmead - Bedminster 513: Brislington - Knowle 514: Brislington Tesco - Knowle 515: Stockwood - Hengrove Park 533: Mangotsfield - Keynsham via Kingswood, Oldland 581: Hanham - Chipping Sodbury via Parkway 620: Old Sodbury - Bath 622: Cribbs Causeway - Chipping Sodbury via Thornbury 624: Severn Beach - Bristol via Pilning & Hallen 625: Severn Beach - UWE via Pilning, Cribbs Causeway & Patchway 626: Wotton under Edge - Bristol via Winterbourne 678: Writhlington - Bristol (Sundays & Bank Holidays) [ends 24 March] 689: Yate - Bristol via Mangotsfield, Pucklechurch & Westerleigh N1: Bristol City Centre - U.W.E Frenchay [ends 24 March] N2: Bristol City Centre - Hillfields [ends 24 March] N3: Bristol City Centre - Hanham [ends 24 March] N4: Bristol City Centre - Stockwood [ends 24 March] N5: Bristol City Centre - Whitchurch [ends 24 March] N6: Bristol City Centre - Hartcliffe [ends 24 March] N50: Bristol City Centre - Chipping Sodbury X27: Yate - Bristol (Via Iron Acton)

Wessex Red


A major contract that came with the purchase of South Gloucestershire Bus and Coach was the University of the West of England (UWE) Student Shuttle services. The UWE Flyer service was one of the first routes that Wessex Connect ran for South Gloucestershire, and soon after the Student Shuttle and Bower Aston shuttle. From September 2007 UWE in conjunction with Rotala developed a network of routes based around linking the satellite campuses of Bower Ashton, St Matthias & Glenside, with Frenchay Campus and student accommodation on a cost contract basis. The services were branded as Ulink, to provide a new high-quality low-cost bus service for students and staff.

The services had proved so popular with staff and student at UWE that the demand for the service had increased by over 100% after its first year of operation; passenger numbers in September 2008 were at around 6,000 per day.

On the back of this the network was nominated for the Department for Transport Winning New Customers Award at the 2009 UK Bus Awards subsequently finishing highly commended.

By September 2011 the network had been re-branded as Wessex Red and had grown from a PVR of 5 with 3 routes in 2007 to a PVR of 26 with a network of 8 routes, with regular duplicate vehicles in operation particularly on the U4.

In 2012 the UWE branding of buses was removed, being replaced with Wessex Red branding. Additionally, the network has dropped the U prefix from the routes which was replaced with a '1' (e.g. U1 became 11 etc.) in a move to make the network appeal to the ordinary traveling public and not just students. A total of 7 main routes are operated, with two short services, the 11A & 13A taking the total to nine. The fleet was updated over the summer with 4 new decker and 3 new single deckers purchased for use on the services taking the total PVR of 33.

Wessex Red used to run the U6A a bus service linking University of Bristol and UWE Bower Ashton Campus although the service was withdrawn after a short period of time due to low ridership. They also ran the U7 and U7A linking Aztec West and Cribbs Causeway to UWE but was withdrawn in September 2012 due to low ridership. Another former Wessex Red route is the U8 which was peak time service from Bristol City Centre to Bradley Stoke this services replaced the former 71 and 72 routes, the U8 itself was withdrawn in September 2012 and replaced by First Bristol route 74.

From January 2013 the 13 service will be extended to the Willow Brook Centre in Bradley Stoke.

Routes
11: UWE Frenchay Campus - UWE Bower Ashton Campus (via Temple Meads) 11A: Bristol City Centre - UWE Bower Ashton Campus (via Temple Meads) [ends 24 March 2013] 12: UWE Frenchay Campus - Bristol City Centre 13: Bradley Stoke - Bristol City Centre (via Frenchay, St Matthias and Glenside UWE Campuses) 13A: Oldbury Court - Bristol City Centre 14: UWE Frenchay Campus - Bristol City Centre (via M32) 15: UWE Frenchay Campus - Bristol City Centre (via Henleaze) 16: Saville Road - Bristol City Centre (via University of Bristol) 19: UWE Frenchay Campus - Bristol City Centre (via Redland Station)

A Wessex Red network map can be viewed here.

Uniconnect


From 11 May 2009, Wessex Connect started operating a new branded Uni-Connect U18 service between Bath University and Lower Oldfield Park via Bath City Centre. The fleet of U18 buses are painted in a dark blue colour scheme.

For the start of 2012/3 academic year Wessex took delivery of 5 new buses for use on the Uni-Connect services which saw the Liberty Card logo used on the side of the buses. The livery is a blue version of the Wessex Red livery. A new X18 service was also launched to provide a fast service from Bath Uni to Lower Oldfield Park.

Routes
U10: University of Bath - Southdown U18: University of Bath - Bus Station - Lower Oldfield Park X18: University of Bath - Lower Oldfield Park (Direct)

Wessex Bath


Due to the success of the Uni-Connect services that Wessex operated in Bath, they took the decision to launch further services duplicating existing First Somerset & Avon routes. On 27 September 2010 Wessex commenced operation of their new routes, the 5 & 10 services, this time under the 'Royal Bath' brand name. The 5 and 10 services, running to Twerton and Southdown respectively, are in addition to frequent services on both of those routes run by their main competitor in Bath, First.

In addition, Wessex Connect took over operation of route 620 between Tebury and Bath from 3rd October 2010 after the previous operator Cotswold Green withdrew from the route.

Since new vehicles have been delivered for the 20A/C in a Blue version of the Red Wessex livery the RoyalBath livery only appears on the few remaining Dart SLFs used in Bath. From time to time these can be seen on service work in Bristol.

Routes
10: Bath - Southdown 20A: Bath Circular (Anti-Clockwise) 20C: Bath Circular (Clockwise) 20R: Lower Bristol Road - University of Bath 178: Bristol - Bath (Evenings Only) 620: Old Sodbury - Bath

Park and ride
Wessex operated two park and ride services in Bristol, the 902 Portway park and ride under contract to Bristol City Council and the 903 Long Ashton park and ride under contract to National Car Parks. Wessex unsuccessfully bided for the re-tender of these contracts, and since April 2012 the Portway service is operated by CT Plus and the Long Ashton service by First Bristol