Evolving in Kingswood

Stagecoach are making changes to their services in the growing Kingswood estate in North Hull from next Sunday, 28th April.

Monday to Saturday daytimes the main services to the residential parts of Kingswood are currently the 6 and 9/9a, which operate as 'cross Kingswood' circulars. Each service operates half hourly. The 6 operates a direct service from Paragon Interchange via Beverley Road and Kingswood Leisure and Retail Parks to Kingswood Health Centre, whilst the 9/9a runs from Paragon Interchange via Garden Village, Leads Road, Bransholme North Point Shopping Centre, Honiton Road, Wawne Road and Kingsbury Way to Kingswood Health Centre.

With the revised network, the 6 continues to operate half hourly as a 'cross Kingswood' circular, but now 'partnered' with service 7 instead. The 6 continues to operate to Kingswood Health Centre then picks up the current 9/9a route via Grosvenor Road and Richmond Lane before using the new Pioneer Way to Wawne Road, which becomes the official terminus for service 6. Half hourly service 7 currently operates between Paragon Interchange and Kingswood Retail Park via Beverley Road, Sutton Park, North Point, Bude Road and Bodmin Road, but after Bodmin Road with the network revision will instead run to Wawne Road/Pioneer Way via Pennine Way in North Bransholme; it continues to operate every half hour. This provides new links from North Bransholme to Kingswood and Beverley Road, but does extend journey times between Sutton Park and Kingswood Retail Park (Bodmin Road has the 11 for direct journeys).

Service 9/9a becomes a 'stand-alone' service (from a customer point of view at least). It will no longer serve Grosvenor Road - replaced by the 6 and saving a minute of journey time - and extends from Kingswood Health Centre to Kingswood Retail Park covering the loss of the through link currently provided by operating as a circular with service 6. Otherwise it remains half hourly Monday to Saturday daytimes. This change removes two buses an hour from Kingsbury Way to Hull City Centre, and the links to both Kingswood Leisure Park and Beverley Road that are provided by the 'circular' working with service 6. However overall the changes provide an extra two services per hour from Runnymede Way, Runnymede Lane (both between Kingswood Retail Park and Health Centre), Kingswood Health Centre and Richmond Lane to both Hull City Centre and North Point, in addition to providing services along the new Pioneer Way whilst still serving Kingsbury Way.

Evenings and Sundays, service 8a currently serves most residential areas of Kingswood. It operates from Paragon Interchange via Beverley Road, Sutton Park, North Point, Honiton Road, Wawne Road, Kingsbury Way, Richmond Lane, Grosvenor Road and Kingswood Health Centre to Kingswood Retail Park; the frequency is half hourly Monday to Saturday evenings and Sunday daytimes, reducing to hourly on Sunday evenings.

Service 7a takes over most of this function from Sunday, operating at the same frequency as the 8a, and following the entirety of the main service 7 route from Paragon Interchange to Wawne Road/Pioneer Way before routing via the service 6 route to terminate at Kingwood Retail Park. I'm not sure why the 'a' suffix is needed for a route extension (as opposed to an en-route variation)? Compared to the 8a, Honiton Road and the section of Wawne Road between Honiton Road and the northern end of Noddle Hill Way become unserved evening and Sundays, as the 7a will be following the main service 7 route via Bodmin Road (though the 7a, unlike the 7, has no Bodmin Road timing point). The 7a will also omit Kingsbury Way in order to serve Pioneer Way, but this will be covered by the 10a instead. One advantage of the 7a over the 8a is the provision of evening and Sunday links from North Bransholme to Beverley Road.

Service 10a presently operates evenings and Sundays as a minor diversion to the main service 10 route between Paragon Interchange, North Point, Bodmin Road, North Bransholme and on some journeys Wawne Village, to serve Kingswood Retail Park. However from Sunday the 10a variation will run between Kingswood Retail Park and North Bransholme via Runnymede Way, Runnymede Lane, Richmond Lane (but not Kingswood Health Centre) and Kingsbury Way. The frequency between Paragon Interchange and North Bransholme remains half hourly Monday to Saturday evenings and Sunday daytimes, reducing to hourly on Sunday evenings; Sunday daytimes hourly services extend to Wawne, as do daily late evening services. The 10a's route change doubles evening and Sunday provision for Runnymede Lane and Richmond Lane.

On the main service 10, weekday peak frequencies reduce inbound to Hull City Centre on weekday mornings from 'frequent intervals' to every 15 minutes, and outbound late afternoon from every 12 to every 15 minutes. The first two Saturday morning departures from North Bransholme gain the weekday early morning diversion via Hull Royal Infirmary and Smith & Nephew.