The Bluestar team were out and about in force on Saturday 20 February as we set up shop in Southampton’s busy city centre to meet current and potential customers.

This coincided with a timetable change on the following day, and over 1000 timetables were distributed in the space of two hours, along with free Bluestar goodies including pens, bugs and postcards. We received many positive comments from current users, as we also celebrated our move towards 100% easy access bus operation across the whole network within the coming weeks.

Our Operations Manager Alex Hornby says that whilst he and his fellow managers monitor feedback on a daily basis via media such as the Bluestar Facebook pages and the main website, they realise that there is still a significant number of bus users that do not use the internet.

“The fact that we issued over 1,000 printed timetables in under 2 hours showed that the paperless society is not yet here,” said Alex Hornby. “There’s nothing better for us than to meet with our customers, and the overwhelming majority told us how pleased they are with our current product. Many were delighted to learn that all our routes will soon be equipped with low floor, easy access buses at all times, along with more buses on Sundays and new additions to the successful Nightstar network.”

Since the Go-Ahead Group acquired Solent Blue Line (now trading as Bluestar and Uni-link) in 2005 passenger growth has increased by over 10% and the number of employees has risen from 180 to 260.