On this page you can find archived updates about the Bus Service Improvement Plan from previous years.
September 2025 - New Weekend Park and Ride to open on Saturday 20 September
Southampton City Council, working in partnership with University Hospital Southampton (UHS), and Bluestar, and funded by the Department for Transport’s Bus Grant Fund, are set to start a new Weekend Park and Ride service on Saturday 20 September.
July 2025 - Bus operators offer the chance for groups to travel for less this summer
Getting out-and-about will be easier than ever for local people this summer - thanks to the return of the popular ‘5 for £5’ group fare offer.
March 2025 - Bus Grant Funding
For 2025/26 the council has received £4.6m of funding to deliver on our ambitions in the BSIP. This comprises of:
- £3.55m capital
- £0.95m revenue
- £0.17m Capacity & Capability
- £0.075m Bus Service Operator Grant (BSOG)
Following approval at the Enhanced Partnership Board, the council has submitted the Delivery Plan to Government. The projects being funded allow us to continue the transformation of the bus network, meeting the needs of residents, businesses and visitors, providing priority so buses can be more reliable, lowering fares, and developing the Southampton MRT concept further.
- Design and implementation of bus priority measures in the City Centre and Portswood that form the foundation for the MRT;
- General improvements to bus facilities (bus stop upgrades, shelters, access routes, security, Real Time Information (RTI)) and bus priority on Shirley Road and in Harefield, Sholing, Townhill Park and City Centre;
- Programme of general bus stop improvements, bus shelter replacements and installation of additional RTI screens across Southampton;
- Programme to upgrade and refresh existing bus lanes;
- Studies to develop further proposals for the MRT concept;
- Installing bus RTI screens in rail stations where they are served by buses (Sholing, Woolston, Bitterne, Swaythling, Millbrook & Redbridge) to help people going between rail and bus, and new RTI totems in City Centre bus hubs;
- Service enhancements and support for commercial bus network – pump-priming enhancements on 7 bus services serving Southampton with a combination of daytime, earlier morning/later evening, night time and weekend frequency increases, where cross-boundary working with Hampshire County Council and Portsmouth City Council:
- Additional Sunday journeys on Bluestar 1, Bluestar 2, Bluestar 7, Bluestar 19,
- Additional evening journeys on Bluestar 13 and Bluestar 15,
- Additional night journeys on Bluestar 17 and Bluestar 18 every night to make these services 24/7, and
- Funding to support X4/X5;
- Funding for supported bus network retendering existing bus services to Bitterne and Sholing, Shirley and Lordshill, and Bitterne Hoppas
- A new bus service on Hill Lane (Bluestar 19a);
- A weekend Park & Ride from Southampton West (Adanac Park) to City Centre via Southampton Central Station;
- Continuation of the popular £1 evening fare throughout 2025; and;
- Staffing, project management and monitoring costs
August 2024
The Department for Transport asked all Local Authorities to provide an updated Bus Service Improvement Plan in June 2024 which is available to view here.
November 2023
The latest BSIP Survey launched on Monday 23 October and closed on 12 November. Please click the tile opposite for more information.
May 2023
At its Cabinet meeting on 14 March 2023, Southampton City Council gave approval to proceed with the making of its Enhanced Partnership. This date and notice then marks the start of the plan, as required and set out in section 138G of the Transport Act 2000.
A copy of the Enhanced Partnership Plan and Scheme is available here.
January 2023
The Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) 2022 has been published, following the first annual BSIP review. The revised document includes additional feedback, the latest statistics and more information on monitoring and targets, along with further clarity regarding the emerging governance process and progress over the last year.
December 2022
Here is a summary of our key achievements during 2022:
- Working with the NHS to open the Southampton West Park & Ride site for staff working at the General Hospital;
- New bus lane on Coxford Road-Lordshill Way and junction improvements including bus priority at the Brownhill Way-Frogmore Lane junction;
- Upgrades to the traffic signal junctions at Thomas Lewis Way-St Denys Road and at Charlotte Place, to provide bus priority;
- Bus priority installed at traffic signal junctions on Portsmouth Road with Station Road and at Wrights Hill;
- Upgrades to 18 bus stops with raised kerbs, road markings etc;
- Tap On Tap Off Readers installed, in partnership with bus operators, on all buses operating in the city which will allow the introduction of new types of bus fares;
- Launch of the Breeze ‘Mobility as a Service’ app;
- 43 bus shelters replaced;
- Completion of a post-COVID network review;
- Trials of two new fare offers; £1 Evening Fare and Group Fare Offer (‘Five for Fiver’);
- Updating the Bus Passenger Charter covering Southampton and Hampshire;
- Developed and submitted funding business cases for ZEBRA and Levelling Up Fund.
The BSIP is also supported by new appendices setting out the Solent BSIP package (Appendix 1), and scheme details for New Road (Appendix 5), Albion Place Hub Interchange (Appendix 6) and Southampton Central Station Interchange (Appendix 7)