Southern Vectis route 9



Southern Vectis route 9 is a bus route operated on the Isle of Wight by Southern Vectis between Newport and Ryde via Fairlee/Staplers, Wootton and Binstead. The general daytime frequency of the route is every 10 minutes in each direction, every 15 minutes on Sundays and every 15 minutes in the evening. Nightbuses are run on Friday and Saturday nights every hour. Double-decker buses are normally used to operate the route.

History
Prior to the network change in April 2006, the route number 9 had not been used for any of Southern Vectis' routes since 1996, when the No 9 "Newport Nippybus" local service was transferred from SVOC to M-Bus. Immediately before the start of the new Route 9, journeys to Ryde from Newport via Staplers were covered by route 7 on the Island Explorer service. After running via the East and South of the Island, buses served Yarmouth and then Newport. The Round-the-Island service was then completed by running from Newport to Ryde. Route 1 served the Fairlee route on its journey between Bembridge and Cowes (later Gurnard). This service ran via Binstead Estate on its route between Ryde and Newport.

When the route first started operation in its current form, Newport Bus Station was still in the process of being redeveloped so buses departed from Newport's temporary Litten Park bus stands, along with most other Southern Vectis bus routes. Now the bus station is in full operation, it departs from stand B, the only route to do so.

In mid-2007, after starting on Festival work, seven new Mercedes-Benz Citaro were put into service on the route. As a result of this, the route became a specific low-floor route. If one of the Citaros was off the road (fairly common as there are seven for a peak vehicle requirement (PVR) of seven), a low floor double-decker substituted. This has become less of an issue now, however as the entire Southern Vectis network became low-floor guaranteed in May 2009.

On 30 September 2007, along with routes 1 and 3 buses were run all through the night every day of the week. This lasted until 16 March 2008 when, due to a drop in the subsidy levels paid to Southern Vectis by the Isle of Wight Council, buses through the night were restricted to only Fridays and Saturdays.

In the run-up to the timetable change on 5 April 2009, there was some talk of a frequency increase for the route. There was enough demand to warrant this as buses on the route regularly ran full, however, it would required two more Citaros, and Southern Vectis had to first consider whether it would be worth it if the Isle of Wight Council further reduces subsidy. It was later confirmed in February 2008, when Southern Vectis registered its new timetable with the regional Traffic Commissioner that the route would be increased to run every 7–8 minutes from 5 April 2009. However, the Isle of Wight Council then did make a reduction in its payments for free travel, which resulted in it becoming uncommercially viable to run buses at this frequency. From 20 December 2009 the route was decreased to run every 10 minutes, with the vehicle allocation being altered to double-deck buses to provide 46% more seats. This is resulted in seven of the nine Citaros being transferred to Bluestar.

From 18 April 2010, the Sunday frequency on service 9 was decreased from every 10 minutes (6 buses per hour), back to every 15 minutes (4 buses per hour).

Route
Currently the service runs directly to and from Newport Bus Station to Ryde Bus station with each bus either travelling via Fairlee or Staplers, alternating each time. Nightbuses are run on Friday and Saturday nights, however only run via Fairlee.

When the route first started operation on 1 April 2006, a bus every half an hour continued from Ryde to Bembridge via Oakfield, Tesco and St Helens. This was stopped from 1 October 2006 when route 14 took on most of this route.