Today (Sunday 16th April), Stagecoach have revised their Kingswood area services in Hull, with the main change on Monday to Saturday evenings, and Sundays. Monday to Saturday evenings and Sunday daytimes service 7 had been operating Hull Interchange-North Point-Bodmin Road-Kingswood Retail Park every hour, and service 8 Hull Interchange-North Point-Wawne Road-Kingsbury Way-Kingswood Health Centre-Kingswood Retail Park every hour; Sunday evenings just had the 8 every hour. Now service 7 operates at all times, using it's Monday to Saturday daytime route from Hull Interchange to North Point and Bodmin Road, then via a one way loop of Kingsbury Way, Kingswood Health Centre and Kingswood Retail Park back to Bodmin Road, North Point and Hull City Centre.
This does simplify the simplibus network, with service 7 operating the same route all day every day, and all services into Hull operating in the same direction around Kingswood. It's not the neatest solution though having a large one way loop that for example makes a Kingsbury Way to North Point journey a lot longer that it could be. I would like to see the Kingswood residential area to North Point link be provided either by extending the 6 to North Point, consolidating all Monday to Saturday daytime travel in the Kingswood residential areas onto one single, hopefully more successful service, or through reinstating the old 7/8 evening/Sunday routes described above on an all day basis. However both of these options would probably require an additional vehicle and extra drivers which is why I guess they aren't in operation and the 7 is the way it is. Maybe the Kingswood network will further evolve over time as further housing is built on the estate, and if the proposed Wawne View development is built?
There are other minor timetable changes for the 7 and 8 as well. The number 8 is only used for Hull Interchange-North Point 'shorts' now, bar 3 weekday morning journeys that start at Wawne Road Drain Bridge, which replace the previous morning peak service 8's from Kingswood Retail Park.
The other route to the residential areas of Kingswood, service 6, also sees minor timetable changes as well as some additional evening services; there are later return early evening services into Hull from Kingsbury Way at 1820, 1850 and 1920 (last bus previously 1750), and a new 2330 departure from Hull Interchange. The 2330 oddly isn't mentioned explicitly in Stagecoach's announcement about the changes; while there is no 'all-evening' service on route 6, this could be a useful way for Kingswood passengers to get home, and everywhere served by this journey also has alternative all-evening services to complement it.
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A couple of points to add here. Route 5 which runs to Kingswood Leisure Park, Barnes Way and then the Retail Park sees its evening frequency halved from every 15 to every 30 minutes. This serves the western end of Kingswood whose residences have a 10-20 minute walk to get the 6/7. It also links Kingswood with Orchard Park, the university and Avenues area. The frequency from the interchange is still every 15 minutes (every 10 on Saturday evenings) with half the buses terminating part way down the route at Hall Road/Endike Lane. It seems a shame that, in the evenings, routes 5 and 7 give 4 buses an hour to the residential areas of Kingswood but the leave the interchange at virtually the same time so if you miss your desired bus it's a 30 minute wait.
The 7 running in a loop means that residents can get a bus to the retail park but can't get one back. They would have to set off towards North Point and change buses.
Hopefully the introduction of later running for the 6 is a sign of it being successful and will lead to a full evening. Service, maybe even an increase to every 20 minutes during the day! This is by far the quickest route into the city centre from Kingswood.
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