Greatfield and Bilton Grange Changes

Greatfield and Bilton Grange weren't excluded from Stagecoach's changes in Hull at the start of the month. The biggest change was to services 54/54A which became the 54/55. Previously these services between Hull City Centre and Bilton Grange had operated every 10 minutes weekday daytimes, every 15 minutes Saturday daytimes, half hourly Monday to Saturday evenings and Sunday daytimes, and hourly Sunday evenings. All journeys operated as service 54 via Maybury Road except for alternate Monday to Saturday daytime journeys that operated as service 54A via Marfleet Lane. Almost all services on the both the 54 and 54A started as/continued as service 43 from/to Hull City Centre via Greatfield.

The new operating pattern sees all service 54's operate as a circular with service 43, while service 55 that replaces service 54A will not operate as a circular. Service 55 will instead terminate at the Hopewell Road/Staveley Road junction, restoring services to a section of Hopewell Road that I don't think has been served since the 10 was routed via Bilton Grange.

The Monday to Saturday daytime timetable has been revised; the 55 will operate half hourly and the 54 4 journeys per hour on weekdays and half hourly on Saturdays; combined this provides a service every 10 minutes on weekday daytimes and every 15 minutes on Saturday daytimes. On weekdays the last 55 inbound from Bilton Grange is at 1350, though on Saturdays the inbound service runs all day until 1745. The first journey on weekdays from Hull is at 0910 compared to 0715 on the previous 54A. It should however be noted these cutbacks only impact parts of Marfleet Lane that do not have a recent history of frequent services from what I can recall.

Service 43 between Hull City Centre, Preston Road and Greatfield has early morning changes as part of the Workers+ initative. The 5 early morning weekday journeys that start in Bilton Grange will operate via Witham for connections to service 30 and then route via Carr Lane, Hull Royal Infirmary, Rawling Way, English Street Smith and Nephew to Hull Interchange. The N prefix is dropped for the Saturday nightbus services, as is the 0200 departure from Hull Truck Theatre; two departures at 0000 and 0100 remain.

Due to the 54A/55 changes noted above, 2 services per hour on weekday daytimes on the 43 do not operate as a circular with the 54 but instead terminate at Greatfield and return to Hull City Centre as another 43. One aspect that has confused me is that all 4 service 43's per hour on Saturday daytimes are shown in the timetable as operating as 'Bilton Grange circular' but there are only 2 54's per hour on Saturday daytimes. Are there only 2 43/54 circulars per hour on Saturday daytimes, or does the 55 operate as a circular with the 43 on Saturdays only?