Mostly Positive Changes in Bridlington

Last September, East Yorkshire made some retrograde changes to their Bridlington town services - reduced frequencies, non-clockface timetables and increasing differences between weekdays and Saturdays. It appeared to be an attempt to improve reliability without any extra resource. On Monday 29th January, East Yorkshire changed approach and made some clear improvements, "after carefully listening to your feedback".

On service 2 to the south of Bridlington, times have been aligned Monday to Saturday for those journeys that operate six days a week, as opposed to most weekday services running 5 minutes earlier than on Saturdays. For service 3 to the West Hill Estate, intermediate times have been aligned Monday to Saturday, so that the only Saturday difference is one extra journey.

Service 4 and 4A to the New Pasture Lane Estate go from a messy every 20-45 minutes combined to every hour each, on a standardised 20-40 minute interval; prior to last September they were every hour each with a combined half hourly service. 

In last September's timetable, the 5 and 5A to the north of Bridlington had retained some semblance of a clockface timetable, at least in the morning and early afternoon period, with each service operating every hour for a combined half hourly frequency. Since late January the 5A variant via Kirkgate has been withdrawn, with Kirkgate still served by the 4/4A. The 5 continues hourly, with a new Monday to Friday 0826 from Bempton Lane into Bridlington added; previous first service 0921, but the last service cutback from 1735 to 1705. 

Together with the 4 and 4A, the 5 now provides a service every 20 minutes from central Bridlington along Quay Road where the three routes diverge - hence the 20-40 minute interval on the 4/4A. It would appear that the 5A has been sacrificed to increase the 4/4A.

Somewhat 'softening the blow' for the Bempton Lane area of Bridlington, service 12 from Scarborough now diverts via the area on a small number of journeys. The Monday to Friday 0710 from Scarborough to Bridlington serves Bempton Lane at 0812, whilst the Monday to Friday 1525 from Bridlington is also diverted via Bempton Lane to fill a 2 hour gap in the weekday service 5. Finally on Sundays three 12's in each direction divert via Bempton Lane so that residents can travel into Bridlington Town Centre during the daytime.

Service 6 to the north of Bridlington now has alignment of Monday to Friday and Saturday timetables with the exception of one Saturday only service.

Finally, Bridlington gained a new Friday and Saturday evening town service from 2nd February. The 513 - a number rather out of place for the modern day town network in Bridlington - is funded by East Riding of Yorkshire Council's Bus Service Improvement Plan Plus funding allocation and operated by East Yorkshire. It operates an hourly circular from Bridlington Bus Station from 1830 to 2230 via Hilderthorpe Road, the West Hill Estate, the New Pasture Lane Estate and Westgate in the Old Town, covering parts of the daytime service 3 and 4 routes. Creating a bespoke evening service isn't ideal, but one bus couldn't provide an even interval hourly service on routes 3 and 4, so a bespoke service is perhaps appropriate in this instance.